Thursday Dec. 29, 2011 How Many Magi?

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him." After they had heard the king they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped Him. They they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

Good Thursday afternoon, my dear brothers and sisters. May I start today by just telling all of you that I love you very much. I just need to do that more often, as my dear brothers and sisters, we need to have love for each other and we need to tell each other just that.

Prayers today for families, schools and also churches. As you might recall we put churches on our weekly prayer list last week. If your church needs prayer, please let me know. Our church needs prayer! So please pray for Carry The Light Ministries, church at The Bridges.

Please pray for Burt, who fell, and for Glenn and Marie Garner, for healing and also a praise for Glenn and Marie are getting better...

Prayers for Carol Harris for healing. Prayers for our son Matthew, and please storm heaven on this. I just now hung up from talking to him and he sounds like he is at the bottom.

Matthew 2:7 - Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him." 9 After they had heard the king they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped Him. They they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. (NIV)

So what do we learn from the scriptures today? Yesterday we learned that the kings did not go to the manger and in fact the kings did not deliver the gifts at all... Now I asked a question yesterday, "how many Magi delivered the gifts?" And the answer according to the Bible is, well the Bible does not tell us how many Magi delivered the gifts. We know this much, it was more than one, because, well, because it refers to them as ''they" and not he, but the word "they" does not tell us how many. We do know this, that they delivered three gifts, so thinking would tell us that maybe three magi or wise men delivered the gifts. However, a few years back, and I don't remember the complete story and I will find this out again, but friends of ours took us to their church to see a Christmas service where they talked about that "fourth" wise man. I must confess I don't remember the gift that he took to the child. So today I will make this statement, according to the Bible we are just not sure how many took those three gifts to Jesus... The gifts were gold, frankincense and myrrh, according to King James Version of the Bible. My NIV study bible refers to frankincense as just incense.

So let's talk about the star. I would think the star went up over the manger when Jesus was born, but what the Bible tells us is the magi saw the star in the east, and then they followed the star which led them to the place where Jesus was. So we know we have a star that gave great light, and again I would think that star went up at the birth. The neat part that the Bible brings out, is once the magi saw the star it "went ahead of them" and then it stopped when it was over the place where Jesus was. So now we have confirmed how many gifts, and cannot confirm just how many magi delivered the gifts. One more thing to look at today... Where was Jesus, because so many talk about the gifts and see them given to Jesus at the manger... Back to the Bible...

Matthew 2:11 - On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped Him. They they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. (NIV)

So now we know that Mary and The Child, Jesus, was moved to another location, and while thus far in our scripture it does not say at what house or whose home, we do know that Jesus left that stable behind the inn. We also read this in Luke the other day, when Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day He had been moved for this and that is also when He was named "Jesus".

Now while all this is great and we really need to get it right, the most important things we need to get and really get it straight on this Christmas message in this writer's viewpoint are these things...

A very special child was born to a virgin named Mary. The Baby was placed in the womb of Mary by the power of The Holy Spirit.

Joseph understood this and took good care of Mary and also Jesus after the birth. The birth was in a manger in a stable showing me that the birth was simple and thus showing the world, a very simple birth is ok. And the most important thing...

The Baby born, Jesus, was born to die for you and for me for the forgiveness of our sins and to pave a way for us to get into Heaven, He was sent to us to set examples of the way we should live and also to save the whole world, not just you and me. As we go into more messages in the coming weeks we will see these things unfold to us, and folks, they WILL BE FROM THE BIBLE.

Tomorrow a special New Years Message... I don't have a clue what it will be, because the Lord has not given it to me yet... but I am sure of one thing, it will be good... For God does not send out JUNK...

Dear Father in Heaven, if it is one thing I learned from You is when You are involved it is always good, if we just listen to You and follow You in all we do, it would be great, but Lord we confess we do slip, we fall and we need help, Your help to get back up. Help us each day, dear Lord. Please review our prayer list, Lord, and honor our requests according to Your will for us. And Lord, You have given us another day, and I pray we can please You by living a life You like. We need Your help doing just that. Help us please. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth sharing your blessings... Love ya, Pastor Dan.