Do you feel as if everything in the world is stacked against you? Prices are high, wars are raging, and companies are waiting to replace workers with machines. You may be interested to know that the Bible paints the world’s system with a pessimistic brush.
What John said about the system that rules our culture reveals the evil power that controls it:
“We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19)
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2:15-16)
When John writes about “the world,” he does not refer to the physical earth, but rather to a rebellious human value system built on materialism, superficial cravings, and ego—a system fundamentally incompatible with God’s nature.
Herod was a tool of the devil and the world’s system. As such, he was a ruthless dictator who inflicted tremendous harm on his subjects.
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.
Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18)
On several occasions, I have been called upon to officiate the funeral for a child. The pictures of fathers carrying tiny caskets to their graves are imprinted on my mind.
I understand Jeremiah’s lamentation because I have witnessed how inconsolable the grief of a mother is when she has carried a child to full term, only to experience that child’s death. However, I have never had to officiate a funeral for a child who was murdered by a ruthless dictator.
The utter heartlessness of powerful people inflicting pain on the vulnerable is a profound example of the devil’s influence over the world’s system. The ravages of war and poverty are the daily experience of multitudes around the globe.
The singer and songwriter Harry Chapin captures the sentiment of a mother and child who are crushed by a world system where one part of the world needs weight-loss drugs and another is starving:
The Shortest Story
I am born today
The Sun burns a promise
In my eye
Mama strikes me
And I draw a breath and cry
Above me a cloud
Slowly tumbles through the sky
I am glad, to be aliveIt is my seventh day
I taste the hunger
And I cry
My brother and sister
Cling to Mama’s side
She squeezes her breast
But it has nothing to provide
Someone weeps, I fall asleepIt is twenty days today
Mama does not hold me
Anymore
I open my mouth
But I am too weak to cry
Above me a bird slowly crawls across the sky
Why is there nothing
Now to do but die?
A Savior from Nowhere-Ville
When Herod died, an angel appeared to Joseph and directed the Holy Family back to Israel. Joseph wisely avoided Judah because Herod’s son was ruling there. They settled in Nazareth, according to the Scriptures.
“There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazarene.'” (Matthew 2:23)
According to R. T. France, the good citizens of Jerusalem may have never heard of Nazareth. Only about 500 people lived in the village where Jesus spent His life prior to His public ministry.
France also notes that being called a “Nazarene” may have been an insult. That appears to be the way Nathanael saw Jesus’s origin in such a little-known town:
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
If these educated guesses about Nazareth’s poor standing are accurate, we have even more reason to marvel at our Lord’s humility. We can praise Jesus for His willingness to come to us as a humble man of sorrows.
Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:1-2)
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 