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Ceres SDA Church

Anil Kanda

Wise Men Still Seek Him

I'm so excited, although it's not the end of the world, it is the end of the year.

And God has brought us through so much...

And what's so exciting is this coming year.

Well, why don't we bow our heads first and let's ask Jesus to bless us with his Holy Spirit.

Let's make sure this mic needs to be up a little bit higher.

I can see Keith Mulligan going like this with his ear.

Dear Jesus, thank you so much again for the Holy Spirit.

Thank you for blessing us with the song of angels today.

And Lord, we come to worship you today because you are our God, our King, our Savior, our Redeemer.

But Lord, we don't want our worship just to be the worship of our lips, but the worship of our hearts.

Jesus, please bless us with the Holy Spirit and guide us.

Some of you guys are returning back after a long hiatus.

We are glad that you are in the house of God today.

God is doing some very special things here and it's exciting.

And every person, every believer should be a worker for God.

And we want to see God take it to the very next level.

Now we're going to be looking at something very interesting today.

So everybody take your Bible let's go to Matthew chapter 2.

You know not being raised a Christian part of my very first or primary introduction to Christianity was during Christmas time.

Although my dad was not a Christian, oftentimes he would have us, just because of the season, he would have us watch a movie about Jesus Christ.

And 1 of my very first introductions to Jesus was watching him on the big screen.

And this was when I was first introduced to Jesus and the nativity and the whole plan of redemption.

It was my very first just introduction to it.

So interesting I, as I was becoming a Christian my dad had a cabinet full of idols.

And I'd go into this, and I would see a Krishna idol, I would see a Ganesh idol, and it was so hilarious because my dad, he just wanted to make sure he had all the bases covered he also had a little statue of Mary and a little statue of Joseph but the baby Jesus was missing and it was still considered worship for my father in the best of knowledge that he had But this was my introduction to Christianity and God used those seeds and he began to just to water those seeds.

1 of my favorite stories in all the Bible is the story of the wise men.

So everybody let's go there Matthew chapter 2 starting with verse 1.

In Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.

When you go to the Gospel of Luke it also names 2 men.

Caesar Augustus and Quirinius who was in charge of Syria.

Now I said this before, but I want to reiterate this point.

The great thing about the Bible is that it's a real book that details real people who had Real experiences with a real God in real locations.

And that's what's so exciting about the scriptures, is that it's a powerful history book as well.

So you're not just looking at a cunningly devised fable, You are looking at something so special, and something more than just a simple textbook or religious writing.

You are looking at the Word of God Almighty.

Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the what?

Most scholars believe that they were from what is now known as the country of Iran.

Something interesting to note is that Jesus said, in talking 1 day to 1 of his disciples about a centurion, he said, many will come from the east and many will come from the west, and they will worship the Son of God.

What's interesting, in the very beginning of Christ's ministry, you have Magi that were from the East at the very end of Christ's ministry, right before He was about to die in John chapter 12, before He was going to the cross, you actually had Greeks who were from the West.

And so this was actually taking place during the time of Christ.

People from the East were coming, and people from the West were coming to worship God.

But we are introduced to something very interesting.

Now there's a lot of interesting interpretations about who the Magi were.

All she simply says is that these people were philosophers and, she says these words, they were not idolaters.

They were philosophers and they were not idolaters does anybody know what the word philosophy means or philosopher it's 2 different words philos and Sophia lover of knowledge lover of wisdom and so you have these philosophers the Bible just simply says that they went and they were following this star.

Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who was born king of the, what?

For we have seen his star in the east and have come to, what's that next word?

We need to stop right here, but I want you to pay attention to this okay the wise men were philosophers there were individuals who were taking into account the stars and we don't know how much paganism was mixed into their religion or their background but all we do know is that they were following a star The Bible says they saw the star where?

This was not Israel where that star appeared.

Because Israel was supposed to be the place where God's knowledge was the most clearest.

Yet you have a completely pagan area where God gives some type of symbol or sign that he exists, and all that the wise men have is simply this star.

It's very interesting, when you go into some of the history of the Magi and you do a little bit of study you find out that they also Had access to 1 particular book of the Old Testament.

It was the book of numbers The book of numbers.

Well, what happens in the book of numbers?

You actually have a false prophet by the name of Balaam.

What's also interesting is this, is that the Iranians still have many of the writings of Balaam to this day.

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Wise Men Still Seek Him

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