THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: LUKE 2:1-20




INTRODUCTION:


  1. As we consider the Christmas story this morning, I’d like to emphasize the providence of God in the birth of our Lord.
  2. Before we go any further, I suppose I should explain what I mean by the term “providence.”  Webster’s Dictionary defines “providence” as “divine guidance or care; God is conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny.”
  3. The original 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary defines providence as, “the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures…a belief in divine providence is a source of great consolation to good men.” 
  4. Augustus Strong said, “Providence is that continuous agency of God by which He makes all the events of the physical and moral universe fulfill the original design with which He created it.”
  5. The Westminster Confession of Faith says, “God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”
  6. When the first Baptist preacher in America, Roger Williams, discovered the state of Rhode Island, he named it “Providence” because he believed the Lord was leading him.
  7. Shakespeare wrote: “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.” This is taught all throughout the Bible (e.g., story of Joseph in Egypt, the story of Ruth, Jonah, the epistle to Philemon, etc.).
  8. Henry Ward Beecher said: “There seems to be no order in the movements of the bees of a hive, but the honey-comb shows that there was a plan in them all.”
  9. Regarding the birth of Christ, sometimes the providential hand of God is very obvious, as when He sent angels – first to Zacharias, then to Mary, then to Joseph, then to the shepherds.
  10. We also see God using dreams, and in the case of the wise man, a star in the sky.  But oftentimes the hand of God is not so easily discernible.  But it is clear to those of us that are saved and led by the Spirit of God.
  11. The providence of God is directed to a specific end.  The flow of human events is purposely going somewhere, as opposed to being merely static or without meaning.
  12. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

 

I. GOD PROVIDENTIALLY MOVED JOSEPH AND MARY FROM NAZARETH TO BETHLEHEM.

  1. If you were to ask the average person, “Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem, rather than Nazareth?” he would probably say, “Because Caesar Augustus sent out a decree “that all the world (Roman Empire) should be taxed” (Luke 2:1-7).
  2. But if you were to put the same question to a knowledgeable Christian, he would say, “God moved them down to Bethlehem in order to fulfill Micah’s prophecy,” and that it was the Lord, not Caesar Augustus, who was directing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-7; Micah 5:2).
  3. God is the Lord of history, and the actions of Caesar Augustus in far-away Rome set forward God’s plan and purpose.  God put it in the heart of Caesar Augustus that everybody had to go to his own ancestral city, in order to be taxed.
  4. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will.”
  5. In Isaiah 45:1, God calls the Persian king Cyrus “his anointed.”  God used Cyrus.  God used King Nebuchadnezzar.  And here in Luke 2 we see that God used Caesar Augustus (Octavius).
  6. Micah had written 700 years before Christ that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, a little town south of Jerusalem.  But Joseph and Mary were from up in Nazareth, approximately 80 miles north of Bethlehem.
  7. Back in those days the only way to get around was either by foot or on the back of a donkey or camel.  Therefore, it would take a long time for Joseph and Mary to get from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
  8. So God put it in the heart of the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus – at just the right time – that everyone had to go to “his own city,” i.e., to the city his family was from, in order to be taxed.
  9. This was God’s providential way of bringing Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem at just the right time, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled (cf. Matt. 2:1-6; John 7:40-44).
  10. Which brings us to our next point.

 

II. GOD PROVIDENTIALLY ARRANGED THE TIME FOR THE BIRTH OF CHRIST (GAL. 4:4, 5).

  1. God not only arranged the place, but the time – “the fulness of time” refers to the precise time appointed by God (cf. Gal. 4:2).
  2. It refers here to that precise time back in history when the world was providentially ready for the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
  3. God does not work haphazardly.  When we read the first two chapters of Genesis we see very clearly that God is always precise and orderly. This carries all throughout the Bible. “Let all things be done decently and in order” (I Cor. 14:40).
  4. God has a perfect timetable and God’s clock is never off.
  5. Everything is right on schedule with God.  And way back in eternity past, God had it all planned to the exact moment when our Lord was to be born, when He was to die (it was not a coincidence that our Lord died during the Passover), when He was to rise from the dead, when He was to ascend into heaven, and there is an exact time, known only to God, when He is coming back.
  6. The Bible says, “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18).

 

III. GOD PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED THE WORLD FOR THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.

  1. A whole series of messages could be preached on this subject, but I will try to be brief.  God allowed the Jews to be taken captive by the Babylonians.  This cured them of their love for idols.
  2. During the Babylonian captivity the Jews could not go to their temple, so they started organizing synagogues. The early churches were patterned after these synagogues.
  3. Then after a while, the Persians defeated the Babylonians.  The Persians were friendly and sympathetic to the Jews and allowed them to return back to Israel and rebuild the temple. Again we see God’s hand at work.
  4. The Media-Persian Empire was succeeded by the Greeks. Under the influence of Alexander the Great and the great philosopher Aristotle, the entire civilized world became Greek – in its culture, in its philosophy, in its art, in its literature, in its drama, in its architecture, and most importantly – in its language.
  5. The Greek language 2,000 years ago was the perfect language for our NT – it was the language of distinction, of culture, and of intellectual learning.  This was all part of the providence of God.
  6. After the death of Alexander came the demise of Greek empire and the rise of the Roman Empire. The Romans constructed magnificent roads all over the entire civilized world, facilitating travel and opening up the world for opening up the world for greater commerce.
  7. The Romans inaugurated a first-rate postal system so that letters could be dispatched al over the known world.  These letters carried the Gospel all over the Roman Empire.
  8. The Romans created the Pax Romana (“universal peace”).  There was universal peace throughout the world when Christ was born, allowing His disciples to travel freely and preach the Gospel.

 

CONCLUSION:


  1. Luke 2:1 says, “And it came to pass in those days” (2:1).  The Greek verb here means “to come to be, to happen.”
  2. To a Christian, “happen denotes divine providence – not good luck or fate or blind chance.  It is God’s divine leading through circumstances.
  3. Do you remember the story of Ruth and Boaz?  Ruth 2:3 says that Ruth “went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.”
  4. “Hap” is an old English word.  From this word we get words like “happen” and “happy” and “hapless,” etc.
  5. As Christians, instructed by the Word of God, we understand that things don’t “just happen.”  Ruth did not just “happen” to marry Boaz.
  6. Ruth was in the center of God’s will.  Consider this: if Ruth had not gone into the right field, our Lord would not have been born in Bethlehem (cf. Ruth 4:17).  This is all part of God’s wonderful providence.
  7. As we see in the life of Joseph and Mary, OT prophecy, Caesar’s royal decree, and the plan of God were being minutely worked out in history.  Only God can put it all together like that.
  8. God brought together a most unique set of historical circumstances to bring His only begotten Son into the world to set events in motion to accomplish our salvation.
  9. This could not have happened had not Joseph and Mary been in the will of God.  Are you in the will of God?


| Customized by Jun Gapuz |