Let's read from Matthew 2
where we had read from last week, last
Sunday.
Now, verse 3, but I'm going to just
jump around to a few verses.
When Herod the king heard this, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief
priests and scribes of the people together, he
inquired of them where the Christ was to
be born.
Verse 9.
When they heard the king, they departed, and
behold, the star which they had seen in
the east went before them.
Till it came and stood over where the
young child was.
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel
of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream, saying, Arise, take the young child and
his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there
until I bring you word.
For Herod will seek the young child to
destroy him.
When he arose, he took the young child
and his mother by night and departed for
Egypt and was there until the death of
Herod.
We'll read thus far.
Now as we read, this text, I have
the question, the wise men, when
they had seen the star, they rejoiced.
I ask, when did they actually lose the
star?
Or when did they lose focus and shift
their sight off the star?
Because they no longer saw it, but when
they got out of there again, then they
saw the star again and they were exceedingly
glad.
At which particular moment or place did they
remove their focus from the star?
You contemplate.
They should never remove their focus from the
star.
Why did they?
For what reason?
Why did they remove their eyes from the
star?
It could have been that the journey had
been very unfamiliar, foreign, tough, but as they
entered a major city like Jerusalem, it seemed
all plain and sensible that this was the
road in.
I don't know why they took their eyes
from the star.
But there must be a reason.
Maybe they thought it's not necessary anymore.
Now we know the way.
I don't know the reason.
Maybe they have to tell me when we
are up there.
I'd like to ask them, why did you
take your eyes from the Lord?
Why do you sometimes take your eyes from
the Lord?
What do you hear?
What do you see?
What have you been told?
What do you hear?
What
do
you see?
It was a fatal error to remove their
focus from the star, thinking now they know
the way.
It resulted in a disaster, much bloodshed, many
tears, Rachel's weeping because of their removing their
eyes from the star.
Get nearer to the star and not further
away.
The star should be clearer to us instead
of fading away.
I don't know why they took their eyes
from the Lord.
Maybe they thought it's not necessary
anymore.
It is of
great
danger for you to remove your eyes from
the star.
It might be because of the glitter of
the world.
It might be because of the other attractions,
something that takes your focus.
Maybe you think, well, you know enough.
Whatever it is, there is a woe upon
you if you remove your focus from the
star.
You might think it's just a small mistake
to remove your focus from the star, but
it might result in much damage to other
people.
Heed God, listen to Him always.
If you are not obedient to Him, it
will result in evil and in weeping.
The Lord might have called you to preach
the gospel.
But you deliberately ignored His command and you
continued with your own career doing your thing.
Well, their blood will be called to account.
They will go to hell, but you will
join them there too.
It
says,
Herod was very troubled when he heard that
a king had been born.
Now this king, this Christ child, the Lord,
the Savior, the Messiah, that anybody should be
troubled by his birth.
No wonder Herod should go to hell for
this attitude.
Why was he troubled?
Now, not only Herod was troubled, maybe
God comes and speaks to you, or speaks
to His people, and you don't want it,
you resist it, you turn your back on
it and spurn His speaking.
For your own sake and for the sake
of many people whose blood God will demand
from you, you've killed them because you didn't
obey.
At all prices, be open
to God and rejoice in His message.
It was His Savior that came.
It was the Christ.
It was
His
Savior, Herod's Savior who was born.
It was the Christ, the one who could
save him.
But instead of welcoming the news, he was
troubled by it.
No wonder a person like that will be
eaten by the worms.
Not just worms, but the eternal worm where
the fire is not quenched.
If God comes to you, and He comes
to you, to bless you, to speak to
you, and you spurn Him, and you're troubled
by it, well, your place is where the
worm dieth not, and the flame is never
quenched.
That God should work and bring heaven to
you, and does such a mighty work on
your behalf, and yet you don't rejoice in
it?
Let's pass now to another point.
Then, when
the wise men had been with the Christ
Child, God spoke to them and warned them
in a dream, Don't go back via Jerusalem
as had been arranged.
Take another way, for this Herod is no
friend of the Messiah.
No, he is an enemy.
He is a hypocrite.
He seeks to kill the Christ Child.
Mary and Joseph were extremely blessed in many
ways.
The wise men coming from the east, the
shepherds who had come, the angels who had
come, it was such great joy to them.
But then the angel of the Lord spoke
to Joseph and said, Now, right now, at
night, you get up, take the child and
the mother, and you flee to Egypt.
For Herod seeks his life.
Joseph was an astonishing man.
He had no doubt.
He wasn't irritated, saying, I'm being disturbed in
my sleep.
He got up right there and then, woke
up Mary and said, we have to leave
immediately, take the child, we are fleeing to
Egypt.
Consider the consequences, had they not obeyed.
If you wouldn't have obeyed, you and I
wouldn't have a Christ and a Savior today.
The billions of people would go to hell.
That you are saved was because of his
obedience.
You've got no idea what will happen on
earth if you are disobedient.
Perhaps many tribes and nations will weep and
weep because of a person like Joseph.
Like you, who does not obey God.
Get up, flee.
For the enemy seeks to kill the child.
There are many people in this world who
have received Christ, accepted Him, and they follow
Jesus.
But today you find that they have now
backslidden away from Christ.
Why?
That they accepted Christ as their Savior.
But today, they've turned away from Him.
The first love is no longer in their
lives.
Why?
It's because their Jesus has died.
Herod has come, sin has come to you,
and you have not fled.
The Bible speaks about many things which we
have to flee from.
In 1 Timothy 6 it says, You, O
man of God, flee these things.
There is often reference to that type of
statement, like for instance, flee the lusts of
youth.
Some people they had received the Lord, but
today they are absolutely cold dead because they
did not flee the lusts of youth.
It says that everything of the world, the
spirit of the world, we must flee from
it.
There are many things from which you must
flee, and if you don't flee, your Jesus
will be killed afterwards.
You're just a Christian in name.
Christ, the Living One, isn't leading and guiding
you, isn't growing within you.
If it says, flee lust, it doesn't just
say in your thought life.
When it speaks here about flee from Herod,
it meant it literally, getting out of sight,
physically removing yourself from it.
Now, many years ago, that same Reverend Malifi
told us this story.
He was a man to whom the Lord
revealed His power.
He was well known in that generation together
with Reverend Nicholas Bengal.
You know, a boy who is blessed by
God, you'll find that he has a lot
of girls following him, like flies following dirt.
He said, there are girls, there are women
who seek to be as close as possible
to the opposite sex.
Instead of feeling comfortable with their own sex,
no, they want to be around men, as
close as possible, not fleeing.
And then he said, what then happened was
that some would share so-called things of
God in the Bible, boy and girl.
He said, share with your own sex.
Why do you have to seek the opposite
sex to share it with?
You even get the situation where some girls
will seek out a man to share their
sex with, and he'll say, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, Reverend Malithi
said it went to such a point that
some of these girls would ask for his
address or would give them, give him their
addresses.
He said though, he noticed that there was
a girl who
totally ignored getting close to the opposite sex
and what the others were up to and
he said to himself I'd like to get
married to a girl like that.
Flee the lusts of the flesh and not
just in your thought life, even physically removing
yourself out of a situation.
A certain white man told me, you know
I've accepted the Lord, I've made all the
decisions about becoming a Christian, but having been
a drunkard in the past, but I just
can't get out of this alcoholism.
I can't get through a week without getting
drunk.
I asked him, well explain how this happens.
So he said, you know whenever I go
to a bar, unfailingly I come out drunk.
I said what, you still go to bars?
I said to him, no wonder you're swimming
in booze, it's because you acquaint yourself with
those places, you're so close to it, you
need to flee from that evil.
Flee.
Some people say I
just
can't get rid of, I can't flee from
these, from sexual temptation, it's because they are
in it all the time and they are
right in the situation, whether it's through their
videos or the books or the internet or
whatever it is, flee, destroy, rather get rid
of that, destroy that internet, the thing that
trips you up is the thing that you
need to flee from.
And I'd like to say, if you don't
flee from that, you are as guilty as
what Joseph would have been, if he would
have not fled and Herod would have succeeded
in killing the child, because the devil succeeds
to kill the child in you, your sin
is the same.
The variety is,
you
need to flee the thing that trips you
up.
I saw recently two girls and I immediately
recognised their intimacy showed that they were lesbians,
you get high with that.
homosexuals, men who are just far too intimate
with each other.
If there is any relationship that is inappropriate,
that's the thing that you need to flee
from.
To Timothy, it was written about many things
that a man of God needs to flee
from.
In chapter 5, it says, in verse 19,
it says, don't accept a charge against an
elder unless there are two or three witnesses.
You'll find a person easily gossiping, coming and
slandering about somebody.
So firstly it says, regarding an elder, an
older man, an elder in the church, if
somebody comes, do not listen to such a
charge or accusation.
Unless it is absolutely ascertained by two or
three witnesses.
You see, gossip is such a curse in
the church.
It goes around like wildfire.
It is a terrible thing.
It destroys.
It's from downright out of hell.
For the Bible says, if a person sins,
go to that person and help him and
talk to him.
And if he doesn't listen, you rather take
somebody who has wise counsel and go and
talk to that person.
Never speak about another person in their absence,
because you are too of Satan.
You are a messenger of the devil.
So that is why it says here, if
somebody comes with a charge against an elder,
don't even listen to him unless he comes
with sure proof of another two or three
witnesses.
And if he talks about somebody else,
be
instantly alert when somebody comes and uses the
name of somebody else.
Be on your guard.
Another approach can be, all right, hold on,
let's go together and you tell me what
you've just told me in the presence of
the person about whom you've spoken.
Flee slander.
So you need to flee the sin of
gossip.
If you can't sum up the courage to
go and speak to somebody about a problem,
you can come to me, I'll go with
you.
But never speak behind somebody's back.
You see, otherwise you start getting clicks within
a church grouping.
You find instead of a holy unity, the
fellowship of the saints, you get a party
spirit where they sort of branch off and
this group stays there and that group has
meals together, but they do not fellowship together.
That is Satanic and such people.
Such people we do not need here.
Rather, leave here if you cannot contain your
tongue.
For you will be accursed if you continue
with that gossip amongst the children of God.
Many other things as well.
We don't have time to go through the
list of other things mentioned as well.
It is mentioned also regarding this example of
money, the love of money.
There was a meeting, a sort of minister's
fraternity where they were going to arrange a
massive big mass meeting, but the whole arrangement
just fell into tatters.
And when
one
went into it, it was discovered that it
was simply the love of money.
These ministers were asking how much money they
were going to get out of the deal
of this mass meeting, this crusade, and that
was what destroyed the whole arrangement.
We once arranged services.
Preachers came, and they said, well, if our
choirs are going to get out of this
deal, come to sing at this meeting, then
we demand so many thousand for their performance.
If we lead the singing, the chorus singing,
then we demand this amount.
Eventually, I don't know
how many tens of thousands they were demanding.
That is such a curse in Africa, the
love of money, which just destroys the work
of God because the love of money is
just so intertwined with church work that it
destroys it.
Flee these things lest they wound you.
Money can become bigger
to you than
God.
You might say, I want to study because
I want to earn megabucks.
I want to become really rich.
Well, if that's your attitude, your Jesus is
dead already.
Herod has destroyed him.
Chapter 6 verse 1, let as many bond
servants as are under the yoke count their
own masters worthy of all honor so that
the name of God and his doctrine may
not be blasphemed.
And those who have believing masters, let them
not despise them because they are brethren, but
rather serve them because those who are benefited
are believers and beloved.
Teach and exhort these things.
If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent
to wholesome words, even the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which
accords with godliness, he is proud knowing nothing.
But is obsessed with disputes and arguments over
words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil
suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds
and destitute of truth.
Who suppose that godliness is a means of
gain.
And then it concludes by saying there, from
such withdraw yourself.
Do you see why Jesus is stifled, Jesus
is killed, why Herod is given free reign
to destroy the life within you?
Because you do not flee these things.
Cling to these truths.
Flee from that which is wrong.
Do some introspection.
Ask and say Lord is your life really
alive within me?
And if you
do
not flee from this, you will be killed.
And if you do not flee from this,
you will be killed.
So this text says man of God flee
these things so no wonder we as we
walk on our heavenly journey we walk on
white bones of those who have died along
the way because they have not fled from
the things that the Bible commands them to
flee from.
Jesus
and
Herod cannot be comrades together in your heart
and the one will destroy the other.
It is no wonder that you find that
there's a deadness that's creeping inside you and
you are suffocating it is because you are
not heeding the words of fleeing these things.
Let's stand to our feet.
I ask you Lord send your Holy Spirit
to lead us into all the truth to
correct and convict us as to whether Jesus
is alive in our hearts or has been
destroyed by Herod.
Our Holy Spirit move in our midst touch
each and every one
that each one will be forced to face
the truth that if I do not flee
the things that you convict them of that
the child the Christ child will be destroyed
in them.
I ask you Lord that as we leave
the service now that you would work in
every heart revealing whether Jesus is alive in
our hearts or not.
Amen.