Bethlehem Born

Genesis 35, and then once you've found that, if you like also to put your finger in Luke chapter two. Luke 35, we're reading from verse 16. And we're reading about Jacob and his family.

Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, don't be afraid for you have another son.

As she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named her son Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. Over her tomb, Jacob set up a pillar.

And to this day, that pillar marks Rachel's tomb. And then we move into the New Testament, Luke chapter two, and the first verse. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

The church has a great legacy of teaching from men who lived centuries ago. Sometimes by theologians, they're referred to as the church fathers. Here is one man by the name of Anselm, whose writings I sometimes read.

And he has this to say to us. Up now, slight man. Flee for a little while, thy occupations.

Hide thyself for a time from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside now thy burdensome cares and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God and rest for a little time in him.

Enter the inner chamber of thy mind. Shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking him. Close thy door and seek him.

Speak now, my whole heart. I speak now to God saying, I seek thy face. Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

And come thou now, O Lord, my God. Teach my heart where and how it may seek thee. Where and how it may find thee.

Book of Micah, tucked away in the Old Testament. Page 1074, if you've got my version of the Bible. If you haven't, you're on your own.

It's towards the end of the Old Testament. It's nice to hear the rustling of those leaves. Remember my comment I've often told you.

Morimach Shein said it was the chatter of the angels that he heard in his church in Scotland when people went through their Bibles. Do you know, the only time I'm really lost in a pulpit is when I preach in a church where no one's got a Bible. And then I feel as though I'm really naked because there's no one to check up on what is being said and that's so very, very necessary.

What I say has only an importance if it matches up with what the word of God says. Now, that should have helped you to have found Micah and chapter five. If you haven't got a Bible, someone alongside you has.

Believe me, they're friendly and they will share their Bible with you. Let's all read together. If you've got the NIV, if you've got the AV, then you can say it under your breath.

But if you've got the NIV, read out with me verse two. But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me the one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Now, let's go it again.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Now, keep your Bible open at that spot. I want to take, as is obvious to you now, the way that the service has progressed, I want to take up some meditations on the theme of the Advent.

Why the Lord Jesus came into our world. If you were, and there's no need to unless you particularly want, but if you were to check through the seventh chapter of John's Gospel, you would discover that one of the problems that attended those who were listening to Jesus as he preached in Jerusalem by the precincts of the temple was that he implied that he was the Messiah. Now, the basic difficulty that they had was this.

They knew that this unofficial rabbi came from the north of Palestine. They were also aware, because they had some knowledge of the Old Testament, that when Messiah, God's anointed, was to be born in Israel, he would come from Bethlehem. So this was the nature of their problem.

He, Jesus, seemingly is alleging that he's the Messiah, yet he comes from the north, from Galilee, from Nazareth. But in the eighth century, the prophet of God said, you, Bethlehem of Judea, you will be the birthplace where the Messiah shall spring from. Now, what I want to try and show you today, and maybe you've never thought of it yourself before, certainly it's only something that's occurred to me during these last few hours as I've been reflecting upon it, that it is highly significant and necessary for Jesus to have been born in Bethlehem.

Indeed, I would give the title to my address, Bethlehem Born, Bethlehem Born. Now, normally, it's not terribly important where a man or a woman first came into this world, whether it was Worthing or Sheffield, whether you were born rich or poor as far as your family circumstances are concerned. It may be that it has a significance when evaluating your life at the end to see how well you have done, how well that person has done, despite the fact that their origins were humble.

But by and large, it's not terribly significant, the place of your birth. But it seems to me that this is where the exception proves the rule. It is highly important that the Lord Jesus was born in the place where Scripture indicates.

And what is more, it's highly important for you to grasp the significance of the advent that you know why Jesus was Bethlehem born, why Jesus was Bethlehem born. If you believe, as I do, that history is not controlled by fluke, but rather by God, if you believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son and that God sent him to be the Savior of the world, not only is the purpose of his birth important and the mode of his birth important, born of a virgin, but also the location, the place where Jesus came into the world. And now following through the thought that history is not a product of fluke chance, it seems to me that you get an indication in the gospel narratives of the way that God controls the great sweeps of human history.

For instance, at the human level, it's most unlikely that Mary, who is a northerner, though her antecedents were from the south, would go back to Bethlehem in her condition of expecting a child. But there in the heart of the Roman Empire, there's a man by the name of Caesar Augustus, and he has a fancy, what seems at the human level perhaps to be a whim, that all the world, you remember the authorized versions, beautiful language, that all the world should be taxed. If you unravel that, it means that the inland revenue services of the Roman Empire had got their beady eyes on everyone, including the Jewish colony, that most difficult place to control just by the east of the Mediterranean Sea.

And as a result of the so-called whim of Caesar, the big cogs in Rome start to move, and they affect the little cogs in the empire. And a man has to saddle his donkey and put his wife on the beast, and lead her to Bethlehem. Because God had said in the eighth century that the place where Jesus was to be born would be none other than that little town outside Jerusalem.

So let's keep our eyes upon Mary for a moment, shall we? As she sets out towards a place that is known by the Jews as David's City. And as you have your eye upon her, remember that Mary is in an uncomfortable situation. I love sometimes the language of the Authorized Version.

In many ways, it is unsurpassed and unsurpassable. And the Authorized rises to peaks of eloquence when it describes Mary at this point. It says that Mary, as she's moving towards Bethlehem, was with child.

There's a word I could gladly scratch out of the English dictionary, it's the word pregnant. It's so clinical, you see. She is with child.

I will go so far as to say that if we'd retain that little couplet as describing someone in Mary's condition, the abortionist lobby would fall overnight. You're with child when you're a mother-to-be. You're delivered of your child when the child has been born.

And Mary is with child. And she moves on her donkey, led doubtless by her husband, towards Bethlehem. Now do bear in mind, as we try to get the background of Micah 5 too, that she's not the first woman with child to move towards Bethlehem.

That's the reason why Brother Ted Davey read to us, you see, from Genesis and from the 35th chapter, where the story is of Jacob, one of the great patriarchs, one of the great leaders of Israel, yesteryear, going towards Bethlehem with his wife, his beloved wife, Rachel. And when Rachel, with child, is delivered of her infant, something tragic happens. You know, one of the things that you owe your mom, and some of you bless God for every remembrance of your mother, is that she risked her life in giving you life.

Never, never undervalue your mother and what she did for you. Well, here is Rachel, and she struggles to give life. And in that struggle, her own life is taken.

And from the last pains that she has and the last few words that fall from her lips, she indicates, at the moment of dying, that her child who is born shall be called Ben-o-ni, son of my sorrows, born in Bethlehem. And Jacob, quite rightly, exercising his role as a father after the wife of, after the death of beloved Rachel, gives the son another name, not just Ben-o-ni, son of my sorrow, but Benjamin, son of my right hand. Now, to this very day, you can go to Bethlehem by Rachel's tomb, you can see it.

The first indication of a woman with child whose story is recorded in scripture in the environs of Bethlehem. And when the clock goes on, centuries later, you find Mary with child giving birth. And there will be something about Mary's child which will remind Mary in years to come of Rachel's child, for it's an old age pensioner who, weeks later, on the steps of the temple, will take the infant Christ in his arms and speak to Mary and predict that a sword will pierce her heart as a result of her being the mother of this child.

And those of you who are on the inside who have knowledge of the story of Jesus will know that he is described as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And those of you who are even more familiar with the ministry of the Lord Jesus will recall that having preserved a sinless life and offered that at the cross of Calvary, on the third day, he's raised from the dead and ultimately, 40 days later, he's taken back into heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God. The place of vice regency.

The place where the power of one is transferred to another. The place where power is shared, father and son. The Lord Jesus, Bethlehem born, Benoni, son of sorrow, Benjamin, son of my right hand.

You see how, and I'm not being fanciful in my exposition, though the thinking has only recently occurred to me. You see how absolutely right it was for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. But you can go on into the history of the Old Testament.

No longer is Rachel around or Jacob. We're centuries further down the road, so to speak. And there's a woman with bitterness on her face and she comes back towards her native city of Bethlehem.

And in her trail is Ruth, the Morbitess. Both these women are widows. They've lost their husbands.

And Ruth, the Morbitess will find a second husband by name of Boaz in Bethlehem. The story is one of the most wonderful love stories in the whole of human literature. There's a whole book of the Bible, you see, that revolves around Bethlehem.

And with time, it's a premium this morning, let me summarize that on one occasion, Ruth's husband-to-be, Boaz, congratulates Ruth for having come to Bethlehem, part of Israel, and he commends her on having come to put her trust and take refuge, I quote, under the wings of the God of Israel. Isn't that a wonderful expression of conversion? Coming beneath the canopy of the wings of God. And on one occasion, centuries again later down the road, if I may use that expression once more, our Savior weeps, not over Bethlehem, but over Jerusalem, because of the hardness of the heart of the citizens of that place.

And his words, they revamp, they are a re-echo of the words that fell from the lips of Boaz in Bethlehem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under my wings, but ye would not, the language of Bethlehem, re-echoed by Bethlehem's greatest son. Time fails me to tell you of David, the great shepherd lad, destined to be king, whose birthplace was, yes, Bethlehem.

You see, you put it all together, and you can understand why it is necessary that the Lord Jesus is born in Bethlehem. It's almost natural to take this spot as being the location of the birth of Christ. And I merely take you on this historical excursion because I think you need to grasp more the significance of the advent.

And so I remind you that that son of sorrows can be your Savior. That's the reason why he came into this world. That son of God's right hand has the authority to give to you the redemption that you never deserved, and your own merit.

That same Jesus speaks to all of us, come and shelter under my wings, for that is in effect the reason why he came into the world. But you, Bethlehem, Ephratah, though you're little among the thousands of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel. But it seems if I can continue to share my own meditations, and they're simple enough on this verse, it seems to me that it's not just the history that's important, but what grammarians, people who are skilled in words, might call the nomenclature, that is the actual words that describe the village, for it's not really a town, not literally, where Jesus is born, Bethlehem, Ephratah, and the estimate, little among the thousands of Judah.

You see, based in the very words that describe this town, and the very evaluation of the town, it seems to me, and I don't think I'm engaging in romanticism in the pulpit, it seems to me there is meaning. Bethlehem, the Hebrew Beth-le-chem, house of bread, man must live by bread. Here are the Israelites, in the time of Moses, they make their way through Sinai, they don't have enough food, so what happens? Well, Jesus is reminded of this on occasions in the ministry to which I referred in John's gospel.

When our fathers were hungry, God sent down manna from heaven and fed them. And Jesus, Bethlehem-born Jesus, was to say in response to that accurate illustration from the Old Testament, I am the bread of life. And he goes on to use language which none but his loved ones really understand.

Unless a man feeds on me, unless a man drinks of my blood, he cannot know salvation. And you see, there is something basic to salvation of which Bethlehem speaks. There is something basic to the ministry of Jesus that is encapsuled in the town's name where he was born.

I am the bread of life. I have come to bring food, necessary food, into this world. And the man who refuses to eat remains forever famished.

And one day will die eternally because what I have offered to him in love, he has spurned. In Bethlehem, the house of bread, the bread of life was born. But we're introduced to another Hebrew word, Bethlehem ifrata, let me translate that for you.

Bethlehem, fruitful, fertile. You see, the two titles that they twin, it's a couplet in effect if you put it back into the original language. The house of bread where there is fertility.

Now here is our Lord towards the end of John's gospel and he's speaking about the vine, remember, and the branches and he goes on to say that if any man abides in him, he will bear fruit. You see, spiritually speaking, it is impossible for you to be fruitful unless you abide in the Lord Jesus. The Old Testament has different imagery but it brings the same point out.

Speaking of the Messiah, speaking of God, it says in thee our springs are found. Now it is utterly impossible, my friend, to be a Christian just by looking at a Christmas card or singing a carol. You know, in one sense, I'm frightened of carols.

Most of the carols are good ones. In fact, some of them are excellent. Their theology is unsurpassable.

But the difficulty is this, and I'm gonna quote a carol a little later on. The difficulty is this, that you can sing the carols without really meaning what you're saying and in effect, you chirp like a parrot. Do parrots chirp? I don't know.

You see, it's so important that the man of Bethlehem, the one who is the bread of life, the one who offers the fruit of salvation to all who are grafted into him, so to speak, it's so important that you have an experience of him in your life because apart from that, you cannot be a Christian. You really can't, it's just impossible. And so our Lord is born in Bethlehem Ephrata, the place known as the house of bread, the place that was particularly fruitful and that envisages all that our Lord Jesus shall stand for.

But Micah goes on, speaking of Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, don't you sometimes think that it's curious that our Lord, or maybe you don't think it now because I've filled in certain information in your mind, but forget that for a second. Don't you think it was curious that Bethlehem should be chosen? If you lived in South Africa, they would call it a little Dorp. What do they mean by that? It's a sleepy little city, a little town of Bethlehem, and how still we see you lie.

Sounds very romantic, but it's not very encouraging if you're a teenager and you want to do things at night. I can imagine the young folk at Bethlehem going to the Bethlehem council and say, why don't you wake this place up? No, it's so dull in Bethlehem. Don't you feel that if Gabriel was responsible for fixing the birthplace of Jesus that he did this in a ham-fisted fashion? Why not sort of resurrect Nineveh, that great city? Or Babylon? Or if they can't be resurrected because they crumbled as a result of Old Testament wars and the wrath of God being directed against them, why not Athens? That would be a good place, wouldn't it? I mean, all the bright people went to Athens, like Sheffield.

All the bright people went there. Well, why not the birth of Jesus in Athens? Or Rome, the hub of the empire? Or even Jerusalem? Why the little town of Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah? Do you feel that there's some significance in that? With whom does God dwell? You see, this is basically the question that we ought to be asking. We don't.

It's a question that we basically ought to be asking at Christmas. With whom will God dwell? The Old Testament will give you the answer. The Old Testament will give you many answers, actually, to many, many questions.

The unfortunate thing is that very few people study the Old Testament. Here is Isaiah speaking of God. For thus saith the high and holy one who inhabits eternity.

I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him who is of a humble and a contrite spirit. As though Bethlehem is specially selected so it can be parabolic, if you like, or prophetic of that type of person who shall respond to the one who emerges from Bethlehem with the gospel. You see, the apostle Paul will tell you that amongst those who responded to the Lord Jesus in the first century, there were not many mighty, not many influential, not many wealthy.

There were some, but not many. It was the off-scouring of society. It was those uninfluential people, the working class, so to speak, who by and large were the immediate ones who responded to the message of the Lord Jesus.

And the little town of Bethlehem, perhaps, embraces for us that truth which is made so self-evident that God visits the contrite heart, the humble heart. You say, you know, pastor, I'm not a theologian. I don't understand the Bible.

I'm just an ordinary fellow, an ordinary woman. I've clocked up seven decades, and I haven't been very good, and there are things in my life which I regret, and so on and so forth. God doesn't have any claim on my life.

He wouldn't be attracted to me. My answer is, don't believe it. You see, your very recognition of your inadequacy becomes the basic qualification you have to respond to the message of the Christ who came from Bethlehem.

Though thou be little amongst the thousands of Judah, though thou art little amongst the millions of this world, yet God calls you precious to the extent that he visits the people of a humble and a contrite heart and grants to them the blessings of salvation. But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, out of you will come forth for me one who will be ruler over Israel. You know, the wise men never showed greater acumen in sight than when they indicated to Herod the reason why they had come to Jerusalem.

Where is he that is born king of the Jews? You know, there's a measure of illogicality wrapped up into that question. You see, the truth of the matter is men are not born to be king. You take the eldest son of our queen and her consul, Charles.

He waited many years before he was invested as the Prince of Wales. And now he's still offstage. He's not on the center.

One day when his mother abdicates or when his mother dies, then he will be the king. But he wasn't born king. No man is born king apart from this one, for cradled in Mary's arms is one who is utterly unique.

He was born the king of the Jews. Though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel. Ah, but some people will say in that case he came in vain.

You see, by and large, they didn't accept him, did they? After all, his death on the cross seems to be some indication as to the antipathy, the antagonism that was meted out to him. So did Micah the old prophet get it wrong? Ruler over Israel? No, my friend. You see, what you have to understand in Scripture is that the word Israel is used in two different senses, as is the word Jew.

Our Lord will make it very clear in his sermons in John's Gospel. He will say that tracing your ancestry just back to Abraham at a physical level may be for you a choice exercise, but spiritually it guarantees you nothing. The true descendant of Abraham is the man who exercises a similar faith as Abraham exercised in God, who believed God even though the evidence was to the contrary.

Paul will tell you in Romans that the true Jew is not the ethnic Jew, for the word Jew in the Hebrew means praise. The true Jew is the man who may be an ethnic Jew or he may be a Gentile, but he gives his life in the worship of God down the centuries to this very day. There are millions of people, Jews by birth, the majority not Jews, who are part of the household of faith, part of Israel after the Spirit, and they recognize who the ruler was who came out of Bethlehem.

Now one day ethnic Jews will recognize him. One day on the return of Christ Jesus, they will be plunged into sorrow as they realize that the one whom they had rejected for centuries was indeed God's own Messiah. The Jews will be grafted back into the fellowship of God's household.

But to this point in time, the fulfillment of Micah's prophecy is seen amongst a small number of Jews and a vast community of Gentiles who have recognized the nature of the one who is Bethlehem born. Out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins, or as the authorized version neatly puts it, whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient times. You see, when you think about the little town of Bethlehem and when you tend perhaps to get a little bit sentimental about the babe, and there's nothing a matter with sentiment, will you not also be asking yourself the question, who really is this little child? What is his origin? What is your origin? Well, the answer of everyone here in my congregation is my origin was in my mother's womb.

The beginning of my pilgrimage was when I was conceived by my mother. Before that, you weren't. Before that, I wasn't.

But before Jesus was cradled in the arms of Mary, he was. Before Abraham was, he was. Before Adam was, he was.

Before the world was, he was. Before the angels were, he was. He is the great I am, the second person of the ever-blessed Trinity, whose origins are from ancient days.

You can go back and back into the past, and however far you go back, he's beyond that period. He who built the starry skies is he who in the manger lies. O wonder of wonders, of myriads untold, for the ancient of days is a few hours old.

This is the marvel of the incarnation. His origins were of old. He's going forth.

You see, Jesus was before Bethlehem. Even in terms of time and space, as we naturally understand it, there were occasions when this babe was making an impression upon the world that he had created. Time fails me to tell you that it was he who walked with Adam in the cool of the day.

It was he who drew alongside Abraham in what theologians will call a theophany, a manifestation of his power and his glory, and took a meal with Abraham. It was he who wrestled with Jacob before the dawn of a new day. It was he who was the angel who led the Israelites through the wilderness and back to the borders of the promised land.

It was he who withstood Joshua. It was he who surprised Gideon. It was he who was in the fiery furnace controlling the heat of the flame so that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should go out unsinged and without even the smell of smoke upon their garments.

Who's going forth has been from of old, from everlasting. This is the one who was Bethlehem born. And now, having completed his ministry on planet Earth, he goes forth again from this scene to the heavenly scene.

And on the right hand of God, there he sits to make intercession for those of us who have entrusted our lives to him. Our surety stands before the throne. He pleads the value of his blood.

You see, this is all that it means when we talk about our Lord Jesus being Bethlehem born and achieving all that one might anticipate from the hints that are given in scripture from Bethlehem's greatest son. You, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. So you see, Philip Brooks is quite right.

In that great hymn that came out of the last century, O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by, yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

It's within the Christ child that the hope of the world is entrusted. And if he is to fail in his task, then the fears of the world will be unmitigated. O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

Now is your response that of Philip Brooks's in that final stanza? You see, all the men who knew something of the going forth of this infant in Old Testament times, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Jacob, Gideon, they were all seeking after God. And as we sang in that lovely scripture chorus, if you draw near to him, if you seek after him, then you'll discover that he is seeking after you. And you need but commit yourself, humble though you be, small amongst the thousands of this world.

Commit yourself to he who is born from Bethlehem and you'll discover, ay, almost in a tangible way, the blessings of his life, death, and mighty resurrection. May God have blessed your heart, these few thoughts on Bethlehem's son. Let's turn to 149.

Very beautiful hymn is this. I don't know that we've ever sung it at the tab before, but we have a tune that's familiar. Give heed, my heart, lift up thine eyes.

Who is it in yon manger lies? 149. ♪ In yon manger lies ♪ All right, let's listen to the melody. Play the melody, please.

The melody, please. My first two. ♪ The Lord who has created all ♪ ♪ And has made me weak and small ♪ ♪ Lord, I do beseech thee ♪ ♪ Jesus, Lord, with humility ♪ ♪ I do ask thee with humility and angel praise ♪ Now, Father, we thank you once more for the ministry of the one who was Bethlehem born.

We thank you that he lived up to all the expectations that the birth of the ruler from that place should have lived up to. We thank you, we praise you that many of us here, perhaps 95% of us recognize that he is our king, our ruler, but we want all to do this. So enable us, Lord, to bend our wills to his will and to know his salvation blessing in our lives and send us on our way rejoicing in the knowledge of the goodness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, amen.