Who is in Control?
Notes
Transcript
Hi, my name is Terry Cavanaugh, I would like to thank Pastor Jay and Pastor Janie for inviting me to share this message with you.
In January of 2020 I felt I was entering into a new and exciting year. I planned to retire in July. My wife Ginny, my son Eddie and I were going to travel. Our plan was to shut up the house and travel for a least two weeks if not for two months. We had set aside money, and we were making a list of all the places we wanted to visit. Then, while drive home from Portsmouth, where I was pastoring, the radio announcing on the news changed all that. He said the Covid virus had come to America. He also told me that up to 2.2 million American could die from it before the Summer was over.
As soon as I arrived home, I open Google and began to search. I have since added to my vocabulary. I not use the mask several times a day. Before 2020 masked were, for me, confined to Halloween. I also learned the phrase Social Distancing. I discover that CDC was important to my life. I confess I knew about the CDC before then, but it was a vague group of people doing stuff that really did not make a difference to me.
As for our plans, everything was on hold. For the next several month, like you I watched the news. Every night there was the stats about how many were in the hospital, and how many had died. It was, and continues to be painful to watch. It reminded me of the news reports during the Vietnam war. Every night they would flash on the screen the number of US soldiers who had been wounded, and the number of those kills in battle. Some of you here are old enough to remember those days.
But during this last year we have witness several power struggles. I, like you, have found myself asking, “Who is in Charge, who is really in control?
Is the president the one in control? Is it the former vice-president who is in control? It is the CDC who is in control? Is the Dr. Fauci who is in control? It is hard to figure it out. Just like it was hard to figure out who was in control during passage of Scripture read for you today by (Pastor Janie, Larry Foster.) Was it King Herod, was the religious leaders, was it the legal leaders, who was in control.
If you have your Bibles please turn with me to Matthew chapter 2.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,
Let’s take a moment and look at this King Herod. He was known as Herod the Great. He was not called great because he was a great man, or even a good man. Herod was neither. He was called great because he was a great building. He build 7 palaces, but by far his greatest building was the temple in Jerusalem, work on it began in 20 BC and lasted for the next 47 years. But that was just one side of this monarch. He also had a very dark side. Look at Matthew 2:3.
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;
Herod was a paranoid, cruel, and ruthless ruler. Because he was not Jewish by birth, many Jews never accepted him as a legitimate Jewish King. This infuriated him. He married the Hasmonean princess Mariamne, providing greater legitimacy to his claim to the throne. Yet when he suspected she was plotting against him, he had her arrested and executed.
A number of other “friends” and relatives met the same fate, including Herod’s brother-in-law (Aristobolus), three sons (Alexander, Aristobolus, Antipater), and many political rivals. As a practicing Jew, Herod would have avoided pork, but he openly murdered his sons—provoking Caesar Augustus to make a clever wordplay in Greek: Augustus said he would rather be Herod’s pig (hus) than his son (huios).
When the magi arrive in Jerusalem and ask Herod, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (2:2), Herod would have viewed this as a direct challenge to the power and greatness he had achieved. He was the only king of the Jews!
In fact Herod, when he was close to death had the most liked Jewish leaders arrested with the order that they be put to death when he died. He said, “This way there will be people crying on the day of his death. That shows what kind of man he was. Now look at Matthew 2:8.
And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”
Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople in the 300 AD, said, “If Herod had believed the prophecy was true, he would not have attempted to frustrate what was divinely mandated.
Instead Herod was faking his devotion. Because as an anonymous writers put it, “When the wicked want to do serious harm, they paint treachery in the color of humility.
Herod thought he was in control of the wise man or the magi. He thought he was in control of the Jewish Leaders.
But, what we will find out is he was not in control. God was in control.
Not only did Herod think he was in control, but the Jewish leadership, both religious and legal, thought they were in control.
The Jewish Leaders Thought They were in Control
The Jewish Leaders Thought They were in Control
Although Herod was trying to manipulate the Jewish Leaders, the Jewish leaders felt they were ready manipulating Herod.
The High Priest and the various religious leaders were called by Herod to tell him where the messiah was to be born. They felt if we told him where he would leave them alone. This would free them to do their own thing. Look with me at Matthew 2:5.
They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
If they believed what Scripture said, they too would have traveled the Bethlehem. Did they? No. They stayed in Jerusalem.
The Jewish leaders were not in Control.
So, if Herod was not in control, and the Jewish Leaders were not in control. Who was.
God is in Control
God is in Control
After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.
How was the Magi, or wisemen led? By the star. Who controls the stars.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
and in
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
God is in control of the stars.
The wisemen came into the house and presented their gifts. Look at Matthew 2:11-12
And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
As you know this is not the end of the story. God told Joseph and Mary that Herod would come after Baby Jesus.
Now I want to ask you, if you were going on a trip, what would you need.
I suggest you need a destination and resources, or money and a map.
God gave them both. The money came in the form of Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The map came in the form of a angel.
All to fulfill a prophecy given hundreds of years before. “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
So who was in charge. God was in charge. And the good news is God is still in change.
I have read that January could be the most challenging month we have faced as a nation. This month we will deal with a contested election, a new strain of the virus, and a new year.
When it comes, take heart, none of this is a surprise to God. God has this, God is in charge.
Donald Trump is not in charge, God is!
Joe Biden is not in charge, God is!
Dr. Fauci is not in charge, God is!
The CDC is not in charge, God is!
Who is in charge, God is!
