But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)
Whenever a new king comes to a throne, whenever a new leader of a country is elected, whenever any political candidate is chosen to represent his constituency, the people look to the future with a mixture of optimism and fear. There is always the hope that the new leader will be a person of integrity, honesty, and diligence. On the other hand, there is always the fear that the new leader may be corrupt, self-serving, inadequate to the task, or even unjust and cruel. In our country, at the present time, a new administration is coming to power, and the people in our nation have different attitudes toward the prospects for the future. Some are optimistic and others are quite anxious. As we look back through the history of kings and political leaders, we see that people do have the right to be fearful in regard to what their leaders might do. Nebuchadnezzar, Xerxes, Cyrus, Alexander, Caligula, Nero, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, despite what they may have accomplished in some areas of life and culture, are most often associated with warfare, bloodshed, torture, cruelty and death. So, if a prophet predicted that a new ruler would come to reign over a nation, that prophecy, in and of itself, would not necessarily be a cause for celebration. The people might say, “That’s just what we need—another ruler. What have rulers ever done except send men to death in wars that were usually for nothing other than a certain ruler’s desire for fame, power, glory, and wealth. What have rulers ever done except taken things away from people to lavish the spoils on themselves.” Whenever Israel asked for a king, God told Samuel to tell the people what a king would do. We have this warning and the response of the people in I Samuel 8:11-19:
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us.
After that description of a king, who would want one, and why would it be good news if someone prophesied that a new king was on the way?
In the book of Micah there is a prophecy that one day, a great ruler over Israel would be born Bethlehem. During this time of year when we celebrate the birth of Christ with nativity scenes and images of the holy family, with the infant Jesus lying in a manger, we must never lose sight of the fact that this infant was born a king, a ruler. I know that this is a great mystery, and we don’t fully understand it, but that baby did not become God at some later time, at age twelve, or at His baptism, or at His, or at the ascension. That little baby is God in the flesh. He was born a king.
When the wise men came to visit the Christ child, they asked the question, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (Matthew 2:6). He was born king of the Jews and was worthy of their worship even as a child. On the day our Lord was born, the angel announced to the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). He was born Christ, the Messiah, the Lord.” As Spurgeon said,
The moment he came on earth he was a king. He did not wait till his majority that he might take his empire; but as soon as his eye greeted the sunshine, He was king; from the moment His little hands grasped anything, they grasped a scepter. As soon as his pulse beat and His blood began to flow, his heart beat royally, and his pulse beat an imperial measure, and his blood flowed in a kingly current.
Let us never forget what the song writer expressed in the carol that we hear so often at this time of year, “There’s a Song in the Air”:
There’s a tumult of joy o’er the wonderful birth
For the virgin’s sweet boy is the Lord of the earth
Aye the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a king.
That little baby, lying in the manger, is the Lord of the earth. In “O Come All Ye Faithful, “we sing, “Come and behold him, born the king of Angels.”
The first truth that we must accept concerning our Lord Jesus Christ is that he is King of kings, Lord of lords. He is God in the flesh. He is God of light, light of light, very God of very God. Have you recognized Jesus Christ as your Lord and Ruler? Have you submitted to the Sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ? Is he the ruler of your heart and life, or not? During our worship services we kneel many times in prayer. Today as you kneel, truly kneel before Christ the Lord and swear your supreme allegiance to him for the remainder of your days.
For some people, bowing before a monarch is an act of forced submission, and they do so with regret and loathing, but this is not the attitude of our hearts when we bow before our sovereign Lord, for this prophecy tells us that he will not only be ruler over Israel, but he will also shepherd them. Matthew’s version of this Old Testament passage reads, “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel” (Matt. 2:6). Now, I would like to read this verse from the New International Version, because it does bring out the sense better: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.” The King James Version has “rule” instead of “shepherd”, but “shepherd” is probably a better translation. The word means to care for as a shepherd. It means to feed, protect, guide, and yes, to exercise authority as a shepherd. It is the same word used in John 21:16 when our Lord, after his resurrection is commissioning Simon Peter: “He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” This governor, this ruler, will be a shepherd over Israel.
This would have been a very comforting thought to the Jewish people because this would remind them of David, the greatest of the kings of Israel. This is the way that David was described in II Sam. 5: 1-3:
Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD: and they anointed David king over Israel.
When all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, they wanted to unite the kingdom and make him the ruler over them all. To convince him that they wanted his leadership, and that it was his duty to be ruler over all the nation of Israel, they spoke to him these words we find in verse 2. This time, let me read verse two from the New International Version once again: “In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’” Notice again that David is a ruler who will shepherd; and, the ruler who would one day be born in Bethlehem, would also be one who would shepherd Israel, just as David had done. When Christ was born 2,000 years ago, he was born a ruler and a shepherd.
We need not fear to submit to, or live under the reign of a shepherd. What a gracious ruler our Lord is! Many men have been kings, but how many were kings and shepherds. Most kings, let’s face it, have been cruel, selfish, arrogant, and bloodthirsty men. You have a good example of such a ruler right here in Matthew 2 in the case of Herod, a lying, treacherous, paranoid, butcher of babies. Last week, we received the current issue of National Geographic, a magazine that never seems to tire of disagreeing with the Bible. The feature article this month is on King Herod. The article tells of how the only thing most people remember about Herod is the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem, and the writer says that this is a crime of which Herod is almost certainly innocent. The reasoning of the writer is that since no other historical documents tell us of this event, Matthew made it up. Of course, in the Reformed Episcopal Church we believe that the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inerrant word of God. If all the historical documents in the whole world disagreed with the Bible, then they are wrong, and on the day of judgment it will be revealed that they were wrong. We start with the assumption that the Bible is true, no matter what any other scholar may tell us. But the interesting thing about this article is that it goes on to describe how Herod murdered some of his own sons, murdered his wife, and all the other treacherous and evil things he did. If a man would slaughter his own children to protect his throne, why is it so difficult to believe that he would slaughter the infants of strangers to protect his monarchy?
With people such as Herod in mind, the prophecy, “Out of you shall come forth a ruler,” might not have been comforting. The Jewish people knew all about rulers. They knew about Ahab who stole vineyards and killed to get them. They knew about Manasseh who filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other. “Out of you shall come a ruler.” That statement might not have been comforting. The comfort is there in the next phrase—“who will shepherd my people Israel.”
He will not be a ruler who will take away what they have and use it for his own selfish purposes, but one who will feed. He will not be one who will butcher every child under two years of age to ensure that they will not be a threat to his power, but one who will guard and protect them. He will not be a king who will trick them, deceive them, and cause them to fall into sin as Jeroboam did, but someone who will guide them to the truth. What a blessing that a ruler would come who would not be a tyrant, but who would be a shepherd!
Is the Lord Jesus Christ your ruler and shepherd? Something, or someone is ruler in your heart. Either Christ rules there or something else, and if someone or something other than the Lord Jesus Christ rules in your heart, it is a reign of tyranny. If you are living for self, if you are living for someone else, if you are living for money, pleasure, the good life, whatever it is, it is a reign of tyranny and ultimately of terror. It will rob you, use you, discard you, and deceive you, and leave you nothing but emptiness, pain, and sorrow in the end, because all those things are just puppet kings, just as Herod was a puppet for Caesar Augustus. All those things I have mentioned are just puppet kings. The real king behind them all is Satan himself, and if Christ is not ruler in your heart, Satan is. He may come to you and rule over you in the form of money, pleasure, self, or something else, but behind the mask is Satan. He rules you, and his reign is a reign of tyranny and terror, and in the end he will murder you, for Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). If Christ does not rule in your heart, flee to Him, and receive him as your Ruler and Shepherd. Will you have the devil, who is a ruler and tyrant, or Christ who is a ruler and shepherd? There is no comparison. He is our ruler, and we bow before him, but how sweet it is to be ruled by Christ, for He is ruler and shepherd. Why should you withhold yourself, your allegiance from a king who is such a kind and gentle shepherd?
One of the most popular passages of Scripture we read during this advent season is from Isaiah 40, which begins,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
But in verses 10 and 11 of this chapter we find the following words: “Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Once again we have the combination of ruling and shepherding. But notice how beautifully this ruler is portrayed as one who feeds his flock, gathers his lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom. Don’t you want a ruler like that? Won’t you submit to one who promises you that through all the difficult trials and circumstances of your life, he will carry you as a lamb and give you the nourishment you need? You need a king that loves you so much, that when you go astray, he will go out to find you and bring you home. Isn’t Christ the good shepherd who goes after that one sheep that is lost until he finds it, and lays it on his shoulders, and brings it home (Luke 15:4-6)? How many of us, so many times, have strayed, found ourselves in terrible spiritual danger, only to feel the kind hand of the gentle shepherd clasp us to himself and brings us home? Jesus is our sovereign Lord and Ruler, but he loves us so much, he describes himself in this way, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Whenever we look at our Lord Jesus Christ, we see him as our sovereign Lord, but not one who has come to destroy us. We see this Ruler wearing a crown of thorns, giving his life for us, so that we might have eternal fellowship with him. What a wonderful fellowship and communion it is! To have Christ as our ruler and shepherd means that we lack nothing. For the good shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside the still waters. He restores our souls. He leads us in the paths of righteousness. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil, for he is with us and will never forsake us. His rod and staff comfort us. He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Our cups run over with blessings, joy, and happiness. Goodness and mercy follow us all the day of our lives, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
No matter what ruler may come to the throne, no matter who is king, president, or governor, the ultimate ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords is Jesus Christ. Therefore, we rejoice and take comfort, for our ruler is also the good shepherd.
Amen.
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