Wise men and fools both observe Christmas.
But what a difference!
The glory of wise men is that amid all the secular hubbub and hullabaloo of the Christmas season they are always asking: “Where is He . . . ? we saw His star . . . and are come to worship Him.”
The tragedy of fools is that, amid all the sham and shame of their annual Yuletide extravaganza and excesses, they do not seek and so they never find.
Wise men were the first to ask this question—and the wise have been asking it ever since.
“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the day of Herod the king, behold, Wisemen from the east came to Jerusalem saying, Where is He that is born King of Jews? for we saw His star in the east, and are come to worship Him” (Matt. 2:1, 2).
That was two thousand years ago.
But wise men still do the same today.
Not the milling majority of foolish men. No, only the wise. At times this may puzzle those of us who by God‘s grace know better. Everywhere round about us are those hastening on to a Christless eternity. Their Christmas has no Christ in it and they have never seen His star. Numbered among them may be neighbors, fellow workers at the office or at the store or at the shop, acquaintances you meet almost daily on the street, or even some of our own flesh and blood. Having ears they do not hear, and having eyes they do not see.
Why, oh why are they so foolish! Why don’t they seek Him as you and I do?
Never forget one thing. We would be just as foolish if our gracious Lord had not opened our ears and eyes so that we may hear and see. We do well to remember this and be humble.
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me; It was not I that found, O Savior true; No, I was found, teas found of Thee.
By God’s grace, those Wise-men of two thousand years ago were wiser than they themselves knew.
They came seeking Him whom they believed to be “born King of the Jews.” And in so doing, they found Him who was born to be King and Lord of lords, “the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden” (Col. 2:3).
Wise men seek until they find.
And the treasures they come upon are too many to count, too great to be measured, and too enduring ever to be exhausted.
Wise men come to bring their gifts to Christ, only to find that the gilts they receive in turn are:
“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man,
Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him” (I Cor. 2:9).
All the treasures the Babe of Bethlehem gives are such as to beggar description even if we had “the tongues of men and of angels.” The list is endless. He gives:
– life in the place of death, – wealth in the place of poverty, – love in the place of hatred, – peace in the place of war, – health in the place of sickness, – joy in the place of sorrow, – holiness in the place of sin, – triumph in the place of eternal defeat, – heaven in the place of hell.
The door to all these treasures in the eternal Kingdom of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not yet forever closed and will be opened to anyone who, by His grace will heed His gracious invitation:
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7, 8).
The atrocities of the infamous Herod the Great knew no bounds. His slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem, in his futile efforts to destroy the Christ, mark him as a monster whose diabolical cruelty is written large in the sacred record. What a fool and child of hell he proved himself to be!
But, beast though he was, Herod did know where to turn to find an answer to that question of the Wise-men, “Where is He that is born king of the Jews?” Although he was steeped in crime, demon-like Herod knew that it was Scripture that must be consulted to guide the Wise-men in their search.
“And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he [Herod] inquired of them where the Christ should be born. And they said unto him, in Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written . . .” (Matt. 2:3–5).
“Where is He . . . ?” The answer is so simple we can find Him only in the Bible! We can never get to know the Christ of Bethlehem as thc one and only Savior and Lord except from the Bible. Even a maniac like Herod had an inkling of this to be true.
All who truly seek will find Him in the Bible. The American poet John Greenleaf Whittier once said it so well:
We search the world for truth. We cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from the quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.
Miserable substitutes are so much in evidence as, once again, all the fanfare of the world‘s Christmas is taking over.
Take television, for example. Granted, like all the other means of mass communication it can be either a step to heaven or a step to hell, rarely a path that leads to Christ and all too often a broad way that leads to the Devil. We hail those few dedicated ambassadors of our Lord who are doing what they can to make it the former; and we pity the wretched lot who stop at nothing to make it the latter.
Be all that as it may, let’s be clear about one thing. Television is a thief that robs us of precious time we ought to spend with God’s Word where the Savior may be found. Satan is so subtle in producing a generation of television addicts who know not the Lord.
It is some years ago already that John F. Day, a former vice-president of the Columbia Broadcasting System, wrote in a bulletin of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions:
“It is incredible to me that broadcasters can report proudly that fifty million people spend bet\veen five and six hours a day watching television and yet maintain that television is not in part responsible for what American people are, or are like, today. If so many people watch so much television and it has no significant effect, that incredible human waste is the most damning indictment that could be made. It would mean that television output is not just a soporific but an absolute vacuum and that all those fifty millions have sawdust in their heads, that they don‘t have the emotional response of the same number of amoebae.”
And in last month’s issue of Eternity, Dr. Kenneth Curtis, general manager of Gateway Films in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, calls attention to the following:
“Some have gone so far as to claim that television has now assumed the role of a new religion for the North American people. For example, George Gerbner, a prominent communications researcher says, ‘It is a religion beyond the dream of emperors and priests because its ministrations are subsidized by a levy on the price of all goods and are invited to entertain in every home in the land.’
“Jeffrey Schrank, a media educator, picks up the same theme in a lighter vein, claiming that television has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses, and that celebrities are its priests, the network its denominations, the ratings its morality . . . .”
Well, television is only one example of Satan‘s enticements to keep us away from Bethlehem and the only Lord and Savior sought by the Wise-men and revealed in Scripture. Whoever is sensitive to and knowledgeable about Satan‘s sinister devices must recognize them everywhere round about us and also in our homes and in our hearts.
To those of His day, our Lord once said: “And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him ye believe not. Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me” (John 5:39).
“Where is He . . .” the Wise-men asked.
Jesus’ own answer is: In the Bible!
Our Lord made that plain also to Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus, for this is what we read: “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
Amid all the hustle and bustle of preparation for another Christmas let us beware lest when all is said and done we find ourselves and our children even farther away from our Lord and Savior than we were when it all began.
In the inner chamber, at the family afar, and also in the house of God with His people, let us search the Scriptures so that with the Wise–men we too may worship our Savior-King and have a blessed foretaste of eternal worship in perfection in the better land.
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.