[Matthew 10:16]
Let’s take a different look at the Christmas Story
and see how we ourselves can learn from the mistakes Herod made. We find
in Matthew 2 that Herod, acting in the form of the Antichrist wanted
to stop God's plan for the Messiah's birth and salvation of the world.
Jesus himself said that there will be many Antichrists [1 John 2:18];
Herod was the Antichrist of the moment; however I wish to discuss here what all
Antichrist have in common.
We inherently know that [1] they are
against Christ, hence the term Antichrist, but let's look at what that means. A
believer puts God first, [2] the spirit of Antichrist loves the
world; a believer fears God and keeps his commandments, which is wisdom at its fullest [3] while the spirit
of Antichrist is full of pride.
[1]-Herod displays all three of these traits in the
2nd chapter of Matthew. Herod proves that he is against Christ,
against God's plan, when he desires and attempts to have the child (baby Jesus)
killed [Matthew 2:16].
[2]-Herod loved the world; he loved his power, his
throne, and would not relinquish it to Christ. In Psalms
10:4-8, David describes the wicked man as thus: "4The wicked, through the
pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his
thoughts. 5His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out
of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. 6He hath said
in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.
7His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is
mischief and vanity. 8He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages:
in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set
against the poor." Here, in these four verses, we find a correlation
between the Antichrist spirit and pride; there are many such correlations in
the bible. In Hosea 7:10 we find that the prideful are told to return to
God, which shows that their pride puts them in opposition with God. We
also find again, in Psalms 10:4-8, a startling description of a wicked man’s
actions, which match Herod’s actions. Herod has not saught after God; he
puffed at God; he has said in his heart that he will not be moved, will not
give up his throne to Jesus; Herod could not see God’s judgment of him, he was
totally caught off guard when the wise men did not return; his mouth was full
of fraud, due to his lies; finally Herod has murdered innocent children and
fulfilled all of the actions which David has attributed to the wicked.
[3]-Herod has shown his pride in several ways; first
he has denied God, he has said in his heart that there is no God; if Herod had
believed in God he never would have tried to kill God’s anointed Savior.
If Herod did believe in God, he still showed his pride because he thought that he could stop God’s plan. He basically asked the priests in[Matthew
2:4], “where will God’s anointed be born, so that I can kill him?” That’s
Pride! Secondly we find that Herod is upset when he finds out that he
could not deceive the “Wise Men” and has in fact been tricked by them
[Matthew 2:16]. Now if that’s not pride I don’t know what is:) Herod
is upset because he could not trick the wise men; his pride led him to believe
that he was wiser than the wise men. I’m sorry but that’s just funny
to me.
Jesus says in:
[1 John 2:22] Who is a liar but he that denieth
that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the
Son.
We find that Herod lies in Matthew 2:7 even as he denies Christ, and tells the
wise men that he only wants to come and worship the child, when in his heart he
has already planned to have Jesus killed. If Herod had accepted Christ,
there would be no desire to have him killed.
The wise men proved themselves wise, and men of God,
because they [1] believed God by following the star to Jesus [Matthew
2:9]; [2] listened to God and abided by the warning they received by not
returning to Herod [Matthew 2:12 ]; [3] they overcame the world, they saw
through Herod's deceit and received Christ [1 Corinthians 2:14].
I can give all the scripture and examples in the
world and that will not be enough to convince some people, but to those that do
believe that Jesus is the all powerful, God’s Son, and Savior of the world; I
charge you; I compel you to be “wise men”. Believe God, accept Christ,
and do not return the way you came.
Here is a link to my books:
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