Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem, Part 1 B

The Emperor Augustus made his decision three months earlier or three months later, or one month earlier, are one month later Jesus wouldn't of been born in Bethlehem, but he was every single detail was in the hand of Almighty God. God is still correct. This still holds everything every monarch of the is him. I'm your host. This is also a census year in the United States, you probably received your census form. Many months ago now while a census is useful and even important. The effects of the census probably won't be noticed by most people. But the effects of one particular census taken 2000 years ago and Israel have reverberated through the centuries and around the world today on grace to you. You'll relive that noteworthy census and the political world that surrounded the first Christmas as John MacArthur continues his compelling study. The promise of Christmas. Now before we begin a lesson John Christmas is close at hand and I have a kind of personal question for you.

What are you going to be doing in the next week and 1/2 to prepare your home and your family to celebrate Christmas. I know your kids are grown, but now you have a house full of grandchildren and even some great grandchildren.

Yeah we we will no doubt have all that family activity to 1° or another will, which is an incredible joy.

I have an annual custom that I do it Christmas. It sort of my job to decorate the tree and the tree for us as a memory tree everything that hangs on that tree is basically out of the life of our family of their ornaments that the children made when there were very little ornaments of the grandchildren made every year we get ornaments and kids names are on them and so it's just a whole history of things she tree keep keep getting bigger and bigger the tree stays the same but it's harder to find the tree as we keep adding more more.

Let's aim for more more of these mementos but yeah so for me it's a rundown on the history of God's goodness and kindness and grace to our family and I love rehearsing that when I put them up and use of the some of the grandkids come and help me do that. I could tell them stories as we go where this came from and who made this we actually have ornaments that are basically baked bread hardened that our kids may when there were three and four years old and just to go back through all that and understand how graciously God has blessed our family. Our four children are in Christ and they love the Lord and they serve the Lord there involved in our church and we've seen the salvation of of our grandchildren we see great grandchildren now that are being raised by moms and dads that love Christ, and and serve them with their whole heart. So yeah so for us. Christmas obviously there's a lot about the actual Christmas event, although it will be toned down a little bit this year because of the covert thing about the but for us, in addition to celebrating the birth of Christ.

It is celebrating the grace of God through all the years of our history and that's kind of a wonderful way to rehearse those memories and you even in the Old Testament God gave symbols to the people of Israel to remind them of goodness past goodness, which he had shown them his grace in his favor. So that's a wonderful thing to enjoy. Yes, it really is. Thanks John for those practical ways to keep Christ. The focus of Christmas and a friend to help energize your worship of the Lord this holiday season here again is John MacArthur to continue his series. The promise of Christmas. Now as we come to the seven verses and am wanting to give you the first of the gives us three settings are. He gives us a world setting. He gives us a national setting with Israel and gives us a personal setting, and all three of these are very important in identifying the nature of the Messiah in identifying the fulfillment of prophecy in identifying his role to the world. Let's look at the world setting. I find this fascinating. I take out my theologians hat from chapter 1 and put on my historian sat the world setting is in verses one, two and three.

Now came about in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all were proceeding to register for the census every one of his own city critical critical that everybody got it was own city critical that Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem which was their own city so that they would be there when the Messiah was born, so the prophecy of Micah would come to pass absolutely critical.

Little did Caesar Augustus know that he was being moved by the spirit of God do exactly what he did on time on schedule to affect exactly the result, God wanted.

There was a few days in which Joseph and Mary had to be in Bethlehem right at the very time of the birth of the child. God knew exactly when that moment was exactly when that day was. He knew when they had to be there and he had planned for that to happen under the authority and power of a Caesar who was far removed from the little village of Bethlehem, and not only removed from the purposes of God and utterly ignorant of the word of God, but nonetheless he was a main player in bringing the prophecy to pass which shows the mighty incomprehensible providential work of Almighty God.

Verse one says now came about in those days. What days while the days just spoken of the days of chapter 1 go back to chapter 1 verse five in the days of Herod the king of Judea in those days Herod by the way, was still on the throne and he was on the throne when Jesus was born in for a little while afterwards we know little about them, don't we. We know about his animosity toward the birth of one who might take his throne, and how he slaughtered all the babies in that region, hoping that somehow he would kill a rival king who had been born. We know about here. It was in those days the same days when Gabriel came to Zacharias and Elizabeth the same days when Gabriel came to Mary, the same basement. John was born. The days of Herod. Herod was still alive, though he died soon after the birth of Jesus. These are the days not only of Herod's ruling in Israel. Herod wasn't a Jew. By the way was and if you me and he was in Edomite and Edomites were despised by the Israelites had been cursed because the way they treated Israel and God. But nonetheless they had a need you, me and King by the name of Herod was a vassal king under Rome. He was allowed to have a measure of power in Israel. A Caesar Augustus was was a wise man he was. In fact, was a brilliant and astute man and he gave the nations in the provinces, under the authority of Rome in the Roman Empire some freedom to operate their own government to lessen the tension a little bit and that was the reason Herod still had some authority in Israel. Herod was still alive. As I said these were the days though of Roman occupation in Israel. These were the days, not only of Roman occupation but that dreaded Roman taxation. Those two things really bothered the Jews greatly. They hated Roman occupation because Romans were Gentiles. They didn't like Gentiles. They felt the Gentiles were outside the covenant, they felt the Gentiles were unclean, but you rarely if he was committed to his Judy Hester tradition wouldn't go into the home of a Gentile because he would be defiled by even entering that place he wouldn't eat on utensils prepared by Gentiles because they would be unclean and defiled if he had to leave the borders of Israel travel in a Gentile land he would come back and he would do what's become a familiar phrase would shake the dust off before entering Israel, lest he bring Gentile dirt in and pollute his nation. They had no love for the Gentiles and had no love, particularly for the Romans because they had these many gods and they were they were a multi-God nation.

They were polytheistic. They had all these idols, which of course were distasteful to the Jews at that time as well and had been ever since the Babylonian captivity many years before they brought their idols in on the banners that they waived on the suits of armor when they had the image of Caesar, the brother idols and when they put Caesar's image on a coin and they believed Caesar to be a God. So they saw the coinage of Rome as I idols.

They hated those expressions of idolatry and Gentile disbelief in the true God, and secondly they despise Roman taxation and think the Romans had any right to be in their land. They certainly didn't think they had any right to exact taxes from them and mostly they hated more severely the Jews who bought franchises to collect taxes for Rome. They were the ultimate outcasts. The ultimate defectors, the ultimate traders people like Matthew and Zakia's you meet them in the New Testament when somebody really wanted to call you an outcast.

He would call you a tax collector so they hated Roman taxation. They hated Roman occupation now, the best we can do in dating the birth of Christ is this it came about in those days sometime in those days during the time of Caesar, a decree went out sometimes.

By the way Luke is very precise. Chapter 3 verse one in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar went potty a spot it was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of injury and track and artist, and Licinius was tetrarch of Abilene, but that is really specific stuff sometimes. He's very, very specific but sometimes he's very general. For example, chapter 3, verse 23 when he began his ministry, Jesus himself is about 30 years of age. Now here is not very specific.

He just says in those days. In those days a decree went out a decree is an imperial edict same is used in acts 17. Seven.

You can use that is comparative.

This is common. The Emperor us when imperial means the Emperor made an edict he would pass a law, or mandate a given order and I would come from Rome from the throne, and it would be addressed to all the subjects and would have certain requirements. This edict went from the Emperor right out of Rome was carried to far off the Judea and had critical bearing on the birth of Jesus Christ critical bearing also to the edict. This edict that came out of Rome went out from the reigning Caesar of the day. Caesar Augustus, neither of those is his name Caesar is a title like King or Emperor or Pharaoh is not a name but this man Caesar Augustus was remarkable man. He literally created the world that facilitated the spread of the gospel. Not only did he do that in general, but in specific he made an edict that caused Joseph and Mary have to go by a certain date to Bethlehem where they would have their baby and fulfill prophecy. To sum up the character of this man, we could say once once you look at them in the beginning of his rule. He was ruthless.

I suppose he had to be to affect what he did. He mellowed out. Later he became a wise administrator, a famous organizer especially competent in the organization of the military in his own bodyguard, which referred to in Philippians 113. He chose his general wisely.

Consequently, he won the many many great battles. He had many generals. He had tremendous skill in dealing with the subjects he gave them autonomy. He gave them freedom.

He allowed the conquered provinces there were the Romans conquered the mall. He allowed them to retain some of their own independent rule and self-rule. He respected their customs, their religion, all of that, he stimulated the artsy encouraged cleaning up literature and making it more noble.

He was a great builder, amazing man, humanly speaking, although he did pass a law that made adultery, a crime.

His own personal life really did undermine the sanctity of marriage.

He had a wife by the name of Scavone, a who didn't produce a son. I was a bad thing. In ancient times as she did give birth to a daughter, Julia, so we had a daughter named Julia but he divorced Scavone because she couldn't give them a son. He married Livia some lady he supposedly fallen in love with. But Livia already had a son by a former marriage, her son's name was Tiberius so he forced Tiberius to marry his daughter Julia and therefore Tiberius started became a son-in-law and he passed to him the right to become the next Caesar, Tiberius, by the way was married at the time so he had him divorce his wife to marry his daughter so problems are not new folks and they've always existed in courts of royalty. Let's look at his edict. He made an edict. This was the edict that the census was to be taken of all the inhabited earth. All the inhabited earth would would simply be another way to say all the known world, which would be all the Roman Empire, which covered the known world in that area census Opper Groff, a simply a registration to write something. This was done for two reasons.

It was done to to draw people in the military service to find out who all of the military age young men were the Jews have been exempted from that in wisdom, as I said that the Caesar Augustus had just given a little in to some of these nations and some of their quirks and religious convictions and the Jews were free from providing military forces for Rome census on this occasion it was not for that we know what it was for because Joseph and Mary were involved in it.

It was for the registration of a census for the purpose of taxation. Taxation.

This was the other reason they took a census, they were to go and register their name, their occupation of their property, their family entered into the Rome IRS agency for the purpose of taxation. This was to happen everywhere in the entire Roman world.

I want to give a simple history on this very important.

This census is is called the first census in verse two. The first census.

That's important because Caesar Augustus didn't just call for one census he called for a series of senses, apparently at 14 year intervals.

You can track these series of censuses every 14 years all the way.

I think it's of the year to 70 A.D. every 14 years.

There was a census and he was big on this. He was very careful, very thoughtful and very statistical when he died he left in his own handwriting rather copious statistics on taxation which were derived from the census that had been taken during his reign. We do read some literature that's existing today from antiquity out of Egypt that indicates that Egypt was committed to census every 14 years and so that supports the idea because Egypt at the defeat of Mark Anthony Cleopatra came under the power of Rome and apparently went on to carry out these every 14 year census events that would've been very similar to what Syria would've done. Syria was the region in which Judea exists.

So what it says Quirinius was the governor of Syria. That would include Judea was a component of Syria. Lars will Rome then pass this edict on that everybody had to go and register because of the senses, the Jews hated this. It was alien to them. It was a pagan thing it there was intruding into their life. This tastefully.

They wanted nothing to do with it. But God was at work just like he had been working the work in the decree of Cyrus the liberated Israel to send them back to reestablish the nation after the captivity, just as he was at work in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, who ended up doing exactly what God wanted him to do for his own purposes. God takes pagan kings pagan rulers and uses them as his own servants for his own purpose, don't you think for one minute that God isn't sovereign in all the palaces of the world. He is and he was in the palace of Caesar Augustus verse two says this was the first census the first of the cycle of 14 year censuses which Caesar Augustus had set in motion.

Now we get a further input here. When was the first one well was taken while a man named Quirinius was governor of Syria. Syria again is that large area in which Judea would exist and over that area.

This man, Quirinius had some responsibility. Let me take the word governor for a minute. It's a non-technical word. It doesn't mean he was the number one man. It doesn't define for us the nature of his leadership. It's a word like a leader.

It's a word like ruler person in authority.

It's not specific it's non-technical. The Romans had technical titles which you can see in a pecking order in a hierarchy. There were Lee Gates. There were proconsul's there were prefects there were procurators and those are identifiable connected roles in the hierarchy of Rome governor is a generic for leader.

So this was the first census taken and it was taken at a time while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

No, the reason that Luke is telling us is to help us pinpoint the time of the birth of Christ as a historical event. This is in the figment of somebody's imagination. It was in that first census that occurred under the authority of Caesar Augustus, and it occurred at the time that there was a ruler in Syria by the name of Quirinius. This helps us get a little closer to when this happened and by the way I want take something the people who read Luke in Luke's day would know exactly when it was we don't anymore because so much time is past very hard for us to be precise about this. His name was Hubley us sold. Pickiest, Quirinius, it was known to have governed Syria listen carefully. A.D. 629 86 to 9, a well-known census was taken in Palestine and 86. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, records that it sparked a violent Jewish revolt which is mentioned by Luca quotes Gamaliel it's mentioned by Luke and acts 537 so Luke even refers to this census was provoked a revolt which occurred in A.D. six.

Quirinius was responsible for administering that census he also played a major role in quelling the subsequent rebellion, however, listen very carefully that census can't be the census Luke has in mind here because it occurred about a decade after the death of Herod. I have a note on that Matthew to one. It's much too late to fit here so we know there was a census and 86. We know that Quirinius at that point was a leader in Syria, but here you have a little indication that this is not that one verse two.

This is the first census so if that one occurred in six A.D. and they were normally at 14 year intervals. All we need to do to find the first one is backup how many years, 14 years, I would take us to eight BC eight BC now and in my note I say in the light of a Luke's meticulous care as a historian, it would be unreasonable to charge them with an obvious anachronism or an error.

Indeed, archaeology has vindicated Luke, a fragment of stone discovered at Tivoli which is near room in 80 1764 is a fragment of stone discovered it contains an inscription in honor of a Roman official who it states was twice governor of Syria and Phoenicia during the reign of Augustine now start to make sense somebody was governor twice that could be just what we need once and 86 to 9 and another time previously back in the BC time when that first census took place is what Luke says the name of the official is not given on that fragment but among his accomplishments are listed details that as far as is known, can fit no one other than Quirinius and we do have some historical records about him is not wonderful. We had a whale 1764, to have the Bible verified the Bible is true. Whenever there is something found like that always verifies it. Thus, you must observe his governor in Syria twice, may have been a military ruler leader at the same time that history records varus was the civil governor there with regard to the dating of the census taken a step further. Some ancient records found in Egypt mentioned a worldwide census ordered an eight BC, that would be exactly right now. We got Egyptian material saying there was one and eight that fits the 14 year pattern exactly that has some problems though because when you put all the chronology of the birth of Christ together. You can't have it any earlier than six BC and probably even for BC is better. How do you solve that problem.

Pretty simple really.

Augustus probably made the decree and eight BC, but Judea didn't comply with it until 2 to 4 years later and that's why put in the note was actually carried out Palestine 2 to 4 years later, most likely because of political difficulties between Roman Herod and conflict something something else. Why else would Joseph and Mary go down to Bethlehem in the dead of winter sometime in the late part of the year anyway when it could be cold when it could be rainy when it could be snowy.

Why would she. Nine months pregnant be bumping on a mule or walking 85 to 90 miles from the north down really upward to Bethlehem because it's assent in terms of the terrain. Why would she do that at the very end of her pregnancy, unless there had been a deadline dropped all April 15. It must've gotten to the place where perhaps noncompliance on the part of Israel had reached its limit, and Caesar had said that's it.

This is the deadline, and you gotta be there by then. Otherwise, it would seem reasonable that they would've waited until the child was born at some later time.

Joseph could've gone on his own and take care of the matter may be an indication that there was some extremity out that had been perpetuated by the reluctance of Israel to comply. After all Judea was off far away land from Rome and certainly love to exercise its independence. Therefore, the precise year of Christ's birth can't be known with certainty. We don't know of the people who read Luke originally probably had a good idea may have known exactly was probably no earlier than six BC and certainly no later than four BC by our dating so said Luke's readers would've known so this is the best we can do it. Setting the time by our calendar somewhere by what we call they didn't call it the dating we Duke that came later, when we dated BC and A.D., but somewhere in what we call for 64 BC. This birth of Christ took place.

It says in verse three. Here's the point and all were proceeding to register for the census everyone to his own city that sets the scene that sets the scene is no other reason. Whether a travel at a time like this in the Romans would normally register people in their own place of residence.

They didn't make him go back to some initial homeland that must've been a Jewish custom or something that Herod required and the Jews.

We know were big on ancestry even when they came in the land of Canaan. The whole land of Canaan.

Remember when the unit was divided in the tribal areas in every tribe at their own area and within those tribal areas there were towns and villages that belong to certain families and through the years those families were connected to those villages and they own the land. Remember every seven years. The land would go back to the original owner. So the genealogies were very, very important that Very careful, very detailed records of families and so they would go back to their tribal area back to their family home area back to their father's village. That's where they went to register that sets the scene perfectly to put Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem when the baby is born in specific fulfillment of Micah 52 this by virtue of a decree from a pagan, godless monarch, who had no idea of any word of any Hebrew prophet or of any of its significance. This was the world setting.

This was how God was controlling the world events crucial to the birth of Christ set everything in motion. For what for that little couple must've been a miserable trip physically distressing her to go far from home, far from her mother, far from her family, far from everybody who knew her and loved her and cared about her to have a baby on the road as it were, in an obscure place and remember she was 13 or 14 and her husband was 50, but was essential in the must've gone because he didn't have a choice.

There are no accidental occurrences.

Folks in the realm of the Holy Spirit had the Emperor Augustus made his decision three months earlier or three months later, or one month earlier, or one month later, or maybe one week earlier on one week later, Jesus wouldn't of been born in Bethlehem, but he was God knew how long it would take to get the registration machinery in place. God knew how long Herod resisted God knew how long it would take for that little couple to track those 85, 90 miles in the winter.

God knew exactly how long it would take so that they would be there for just a few days. But in those days the baby would be born every single detail was in the hand of Almighty God and God still directs history and he still holds every king, every monarch, every ruler in his hand for his own purposes. That's John MacArthur continuing his current series on grace do you titled the promise of Christmas along with teaching each day on radio. John also serves as Chancellor of the Masters University and seminary well friend, just a reminder that people like you play a key role in getting verse by verse teaching like today's lesson to spiritually hungry listeners around the world the end of the year is an especially important time about 1/4 of our annual budget is met by gifts we receive. The last few weeks of the year to make a tax-deductible donation. Contact us today. You can mail your gift to Grace to you. Box 4000 panorama city, CA 91412.

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