Sovereign Over Opposition

INTRO: The college football playoffs kicked off this past week. To me football games are battle simulations between opposing armies... even though the simulation part is sometimes lacking and players too often are seriously injured. I think of all sports as battle simulation. There are strategies and positions, practice and equipment, and a General (head coach) with his subordinate experts all helping these “soldiers” function at their peak, trying to gain an advantage over the opposing army. But the war is waged over an oblong ball. The analogy applies to almost every sport and competition (soccer, basketball, baseball, even chess…).

But the Christian life is not a sporting event. It is a life and death battle for the souls of human beings. Each life is a part of the cosmological war that Satan wages against the Creator God.

And the battle surges on even though the death blow has been dealt. Satan now rages against the inevitable reality that he has already lost… because Christ died for sin and rose victorious. But he bends the world to his will to wreak as much havoc as he can against the glory of God until he is once and for all confined, having been rightly condemned long ago for desiring to usurp the glory and authority of his Creator.

So we face opposition from without, as Satan manipulates men and the ways of the world to oppose Christ’s Church. And more subtle but just as sinister is the battle from within, where sin continues to fight against the control of the Spirit in our lives. Our old nature, not yet fully dead, still seeks to master us.

What I’m reminding you of this morning as we face 2021, when you might be tempted to just be hoping the next year is better than 2020, is that the opposition to God’s program is real and it is fierce.

With that reality check in place, which we see as plainly evident in our text today, I want us also to understand that there is clear hope for pressing forward with Jesus, because God is sovereign over any and all opposition.

In the first paragraph then, God uses Joseph’s simple obedience as the means to protect the Christ child.

God protects the Christ child through Joseph obediently fleeing to Egypt. (vv. 13-15)

Here we find a truth in these verses that is so critical and yet could be easily overlooked. And it comes back to something we said two weeks ago concerning Joseph when he took Mary as his wife, in spite of the difficulty of the situation: He obeys.

Let me unpack why this is not just ho-hum obedience for his own convenience.

So the Magi from the east who came to worship the child Jesus have just departed, leaving Bethlehem by another way (not heading back through Jerusalem) because God warned them in a dream of Herod’s wicked scheme.

And Joseph receives another vision from God—an angel appearing to him in a dream with the following instruction: rise (right now, essentially), take Mary and Jesus, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. The reason is given as well: Herod seeks to destroy the child.

So the motivation for high-tailing it out of Bethlehem is clear. But Joseph could have found many reasons to fear, doubt, question, and even disobey.

- “But we just started a life here. Does it have to be tonight? Can’t I at least wrap up some business? - Also, did the angel really say Egypt? [map]... I think he must have meant Gaza.” Just to the border of Egypt would be 90 miles from Bethlehem, much less getting to a city with a large enough Jewish contingent, like Alexandria, which is undoubtedly what they needed to do since they also didn’t know how long they’d have to stay.

Travel of that distance with a small child would be difficult, and it’s even quite possible that Mary could now be pregnant again… If Jesus is 1.5 or 2 years old… and knowing that he had siblings. - Joseph might also have thought, “We don’t know anyone there. How will we provide for basic needs? I guess we’ll have to pawn the gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the Magi to live on in the meantime.” (quite possibly how God provided for them)

We do not hear Joseph questioning God and making excuses in an of these ways. By faith in God he must have known that where God leads he provides.

My point is this: Obedience wasn’t easy the last time and it wasn’t easy this time. But Joseph gets up his small family at night and leaves at once. Their lives were at stake… the life and mission of the Messiah was threatened.

I sometimes tell my children, in various other wording, “There could be times where immediate obedience might literally spare your life (or someone else’s).”

Even when we’re being asked to do something hard, something we’re not sure we want to do, something that doesn’t match our plans, we do well to remember that God’s plan for our obedience is for our own good. As I alluded to earlier, sin is literally out to destroy you.

And Satan is a ravenous lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

Contemplating sin is like wanting really badly to go over and stroke the lion’s fluffy, golden mane. Choosing to sin is like actually petting the lion and putting your head in his mouth to examine his impressive teeth.

Disobedience to God will ruin us. But obedience to God is the rich privilege of his children, trusting that He knows best. - Joseph proves the mold that obedience to God is the overflow of faith in God.

And his obedience comes not a moment too soon. (We’re jumping over the rest of verse 15 to come back to it with the other prophetic fulfillments.) In this next section we can hardly stomach the reality, because…

Herod displays the horrific consequence of Satan having his way in the world. (vv. 16-18)

(...of sin having its way in our lives)

Knowing the natural route for the Magi to return home was through the capital city, Herod is aware of being outwitted and is fuming. But his reaction is more than an angry outburst; it is cold and calculated murder.

Scholars suspect that in a small town like Bethlehem there may have been some 10-30 male children in the age window of 2 and under (the timetable given by the wise men from when they first saw the star). He may have put to death even more, however, depending on how much he widened the circle in what Matthew calls the surrounding “region.”

It is certainly true that this would have been great cause for weeping, not only for those families in and around Bethlehem, but report of it would undoubtedly have spread around Israel (and possibly beyond), causing sadness and disillusionment for many.

Again, the point I’m making for you is that Herod’s wickedness and unrestrained opposition to the coming Messiah is in fact evidence of what takes place in individuals and societies that allow the Great Liar and Adversary to have his way.

Let’s be clear and honest. The devil does this incrementally. Sin often gradually erodes from within.

King David did not wake up one morning and say, I think I’ll stop being sensitive to God’s leading and become an adulterous murderer today. - First he was irresponsible (staying home when he should have gone out to war with the men). David was then lustful (looking at and thinking of Bathsheba inappropriately… as anything more than thinking of her like a sister and someone else’s wife). David abused his position and was adulterous. David committed murder (being directly responsible for Uriah’s death). - And the consequences of David’s sin impacted his family and an entire kingdom for generations.

Sin begins simple, in the mind first. But as we unrepentantly ignore it, we’ve given the devil his “foothold” as the Bible calls it (Eph 4:27). This is the enemy of your soul, and he relishes the opportunity you’ve given him to destroy you.

The example of David also makes my next point on which we must be clear and honest about giving opportunity to sin and Satan: Every one of us has the potential to sin in the worst ways imaginable… to destroy our lives and the lives of others… to wreck our relationships, our jobs, our marriages, our ministries… and most importantly, to dishonor the God who made us, the Lord who died for the sins of his own.

Until only recently, I have held the late Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias in highest regard. In recent months and days, we find out, now shortly after his death, that he is not only accused of sexual misconduct, but that the allegations are true and many. … With deep sadness, I can guarantee you that Ravi’s dying wish was not to defame the name of Christ, to destroy years and years of effort to draw people to Jesus as the ultimate truth, to derail an entire ministry and organization in his own name (RZIM), and to utterly and deeply wound his wife, children, and so many who worked with him, fought beside him, and who looked up to him.

I tell you this not to sensationalize sin whatsoever, but as a cautionary tale. The Apostle Paul warns the church:

1 Corinthians 10:11–12 ESV

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Going back to the overall point, it is not as though the ramifications of sin and Satan’s scheming is limited to small-scale individual situations. No, his goal is to set the whole world on fire with unquenchable self-centeredness and hatred toward God.

For the sake of time this morning, here is just one current example in our world with massive implications, in which our society has believed a lie and now tells Christians that we are not only intolerant bigots, but are in fact immoral for our belief in God’s standard of rightness.

Western society has elevated individual autonomy as the highest virtue (which, I’ll add, was part and parcel of the very lie the devil used to lure Adam and Eve into sin—individual autonomy, personal freedom from all pre-determined restraints). This evil cloaked as virtue, this wolf in sheep’s clothing, not only claims autonomy from God, but results in the death of multiple other true virtues.

The result is a moral revolution that has literally reversed right and wrong. A woman’s individual right over her own body means that she is free to take the life of a person conceived inside her. (With admission that the individual scenarios are complex, and genuine sensitivity to the real ramifications people face... cloaking the murder of other human beings in softer terminology does not ultimately make it less wicked.)

Here’s a second implication of the moral revolution brought on by the so-called highest virtue of individual autonomy: A boy’s experiential perception of his gender identity, of attraction and un-attraction, literally makes it such that our society casts off natural law (basic scientific evidence), denies God’s design and command, and utterly defies logic (We can’t even make sense any longer of the terminology for how to describe one another). That is not a joke, or an exaggeration.

Family members in Christ, such is what we’re up against today and tomorrow. We will fight for truth with every avenue that God gives us, but don’t expect the world to see things our way.

Romans 8:7–8 ESV

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

If such is what is before us, what can possibly be done? Instead of shaking our heads and saying that we’re fearful for our grandchildren growing up in this world, we need a foundation more sure and plan more dependable.

As we head toward a finish line for this message this morning, let me reverse my original order for the final two points to follow this train of thought and demonstrate the answers from our text of God’s binding and eternal Word.

God’s purposes proceed according to plan. (vv. 15b, 17-18, & 23b)

We need not be overwhelmed when wickedness seems to have its way. God’s purposes always have and always will proceed according to plan.

Matthew shows this to us in all three sections of our text today. He concludes the first paragraph with explanation that the trip to Egypt and back, seeming at the time to be merely a pragmatic escape from Herod, proves to also be fulfillment of prophecy.

This kind of prophetic fulfillment is called a “type,” where some past historical activity in God’s relationship to man (and especially to his people Israel) serves as a pictorial prophecy, a shadow, that is more perfectly fulfilled in Christ. Types are always fulfilled in Christ and clearly identified by NT writers. (In other words, we need not search for types in the OT that are not marked out as such by the NT.)

Hosea, quoted in our text, had spoken of this past incident, when God brought Isreal up out of slavery in Egypt in the exodus, calling his chosen people Israel his “son.” Here then Matthew applies it to Jesus as the son who is true and better, a loyal and obedient Israel.

Similarly, even in the resulting lamentation of Herod’s vicious murder of defenseless children (I’m now talking about the quotation from Jeremiah in the second section), Matthew reveals a historical type that is more fully understood in the days of Christ. - Rachel, who was buried in Bethlehem, Jeremiah employs as personification describing Israel weeping for her children being carried off in the Babylonian exile. “King Nebuchadnezzar used Ramah [also in the same region] as a place of detainment for the Jews being deported to Babylon.”- Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Ramah,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1818.

Herod’s attempt to take Jesus’ life, resulting in a massacre of children, is cause once again for Rachel to mourn.

Finally, Joseph’s return to Nazareth after being warned about one of Herod’s successors, Archelaus, ruling over Judea, is yet another proof that what God had spoken through prophets many years before was truly fulfilled in Christ. In this case, I believe the best understanding here is also typological, since no single text provides Matthew’s citation. Instead, various OT texts (Matthew does say “prophets,” plural) give rise to the theme that the Messiah would be despised. Nazareth, we even know from other NT evidence, was a town despised during Jesus’ day. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asks Philip when in Jn 1:46 he is told that they’ve found the one whom the Law of Moses and the prophets foretold. “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

These three examples compound to prove the point: God’s purposes proceed according to plan.

To us this means that God is sovereign. - Theologically, God being sovereign means he ultimately has absolute control over everyone and everything. He is sovereign over the hearts and lives of men, over the entire known universe, over the evil and opposition that we face; therefore, we need not fear or falter. Our sure foundation is hope in God, and trust in the fulfillment of his promises through Jesus Christ.

Again, we said moments ago that with such a daunting enemy without and a whirlwind war within, we need both a foundation more sure and a plan more dependable. Our foundation more sure is hope in God, whose ultimate purposes will always proceed according to plan. Nothing falls outside his sovereignty. We also need a dependable, proven plan.

I am convinced that the worst of the world’s raging against God is not behind us but before us, so we must look again to the example of Joseph:

Continued obedience to God’s revelation is the path forward. (vv. 19-23)

“When Herod died...” We’re not sure if celebration is in order when somebody dies, but we’re all doing this on the inside [a bit of fist pumping and air guitar]. Anyway, Herod does die a miserable death, historically described as his organs festering and rotting within him. In his will, Herod splits the kingdom three ways (amongst sons he hasn’t yet killed): Herod Philip II gets the regions north of Galilee, Herod Antipas Galilee and Perea, and Archelaus is set to rule Samaria, Judea, and Idumea. This third chap is a real winner—all the vices of his father and none of the skills.

It reminds me of the transition of power in Venezuela when Hugo Chavez died of cancer. He led the country in a wrong direction, but he seemed fairly capable at his nonsense. When he left Maduro in charge, he was leaving a guy will all his vices and none of his leadership skill.

Anyway, Archelaus will prove so ineffective and brutal as a leader that Rome will depose him shortly and set up a governor over the region instead, with closer ties to Rome. (Down that line of Rome’s appointments is how we end up with Pontius Pilate as governor at the crucifixion of Jesus.)

Because Archelaus is worse than his father, God instructs Joseph in dreams not only that he can return to Israel, but that it would be best to avoid heading back anywhere near Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Joseph retreats to the small Galilean village of Nazareth (which we know from Luke was somewhere they had previous ties… in fact that’s where they left from to go to Bethlehem in the first place).

Again, what do we learn here? There is only one path forward for the people of God: continued obedience—submission to the Spirit of God, which is always consistent with revelation from God.

God is magnificently gracious to us in this… when we submit to him, he works to enable us to obey him. If we decide in the moment of temptation that our sin is good and that we love it rather than God, we will commit sin. But if, in the moment of temptation, we turn to God and say, “Lord, I do not want to sin. I want to submit to what you know is best for me. Help me even now to obey you Lord. I do not want to fall prey to lies; I want to understand and believe your truth.” Will God not answer that prayer? (The real problem is we so often are quick to sin instead of turning to God to plead for merciful help to obey…)

Pray for God to help you obey, and plan for being more faithful tomorrow than you have been today in seeking him where he may be found. Where do you look to know how you should obey God? Look no further than God’s word. Spend time in your Bible as if you are seeking there to find and cherish the very heart of God, because that is where he has chosen to reveal himself.

PRAYER: Lord, we do not know how our circumstances will unfold in 2021. But we know you are sovereign, and we know you have saved us. We know you have conquered and we know you are coming. We know we are insufficient but that you are sufficient. God help us, then, we pray, no matter how great the opposition, to confidently obey your word for our good and your glory. Amen.

[Closing… after final song]

There stands before us a vast spiritual desert, and the trek will be long and hard… that’s why the Christian journey requires endurance. But we do not follow this hard path of obedience alone. Jesus is the perfect Adam and the obedient Israel. Through Him God has brought us out of bondage, returned us from exile, and is guiding us on a journey to the land of perfect rest. In Him we press on, knowing that he is sovereign over opposition, has defeated the great opponent, and will vindicate his people even as he himself has been vindicated.

PRAY: Lord, by your matchless grace and for your limitless glory, strengthen your people to withstand the fire and grow in purity. May you find us faithful at your second advent. Amen.

***