Call to Worship December 24 2017
Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke
J.C. Ryle Luke 2:1-7
“Let us notice, secondly — the PLACE where Christ was born. It was not at Nazareth of Galilee, where His mother Mary lived. The prophet Micah had foretold that the event was to take place at Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2.) And so it came to pass. At Bethlehem, Christ was born.
The overruling providence of God appears in this simple fact. He orders all things in Heaven and earth. He turns the hearts of kings wherever He will. He overruled the time when Augustus decreed the taxing. He directed the enforcement of the decree in such a way, that Mary must needs be at Bethlehem when the time came for the baby to be born. Little did the haughty Roman emperor, and his officer Quirinius, think that they were only instruments in the hand of the God, and were only carrying out the eternal purposes of the King of kings! Little did they think that they were helping to lay the foundation of a kingdom, before which the empires of this world would all go down one day, and Roman idolatry pass away. The words of Isaiah, upon a like occasion, should be remembered, “But this is not what he intends — this is not what he has in mind.” (Isaiah 10:7.)
The heart of a believer should take comfort in the recollection of God’s providential government of the world. A true Christian should never be greatly moved or disturbed by the conduct of the rulers of the earth. He should see with the eye of faith — a divine hand overruling all that they do, to the praise and glory of God. He should regard every king and potentate — an Augustus, a Quirinius, a Darius, a Cyrus, a Sennacherib — as a creature who, with all his power — can do nothing but what God allows, nor anything which is not carrying out God’s will. And when the rulers of this world “set themselves against the Lord” — the believer should take comfort in the words of Solomon, “There is one higher than they!” (Ecclesiastes 5:8.)”