Hanningfield Green
Lawshall
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
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The Christmas Star
Numbers 24: 10 - 25
Micah 5: 27 & Matthew 2: 1-2
On a previous Christmas (as I’m sure you will remember); I spoke on The Christmas Battle, from Genesis to Revelation. but to refresh your memory briefly we saw that the battle started in heaven when Satan rebelled against God. It then shifted from war in heaven to war on earth as Satan was cast down with all his angels. Then there was the temptation and the fall through Adam and Eve. All of which led us to our first great prophecy of Christmas in Genesis 3:15, the prophecy of the seed of the woman, as God continued his curse upon the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Here we are introduced to the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The seed of the woman refers to her offspring and the seed of the serpent refers to the offspring of Satan. Now, in one sense the seed of the woman represents the whole human race, that is, all of the offspring of Eve because Satan is against God, therefore he is against the whole human race because every human being is created in God’s image.
But in a narrower sense, the seed of the woman refers to the godly offspring of Eve, that is, those who believe and follow God. Surely, this makes better sense of the seed of the serpent because Satan doesn’t have any actual offspring like Eve does. And so, the seed of the serpent are the ungodly offspring of Eve, that is, those who are against God just as Satan is against God.
And this brought us to the third and final aspect of this great battle because in the narrowest sense of all, it refers to One specific individual offspring of Eve.
As soon as Adam and Eve fell into sin, God immediately gave the prophecy of the seed of the woman which was fulfilled when Christ came into the world at Christmas and later defeated Satan at the cross. Just to highlight four things here:
· The woman’s seed could be taken as the first reference to the virgin birth.
· Gods’ kindness in promising the Messiah before pronouncing His sentence upon Adam and Eve.
· Satan bruised Jesus’ heel, but Jesus crushed Satan’s head.
· Yes, Satan is still a powerful enemy, but he is a defeated enemy.
This, therefore, was the first great prophecy of Christmas and how it was fulfilled, and now we move on to the second great prophesy of Christmas. As the star of Bethlehem is a fascinating part of the Christmas story.
Many of the most recognisable images of Christmas are those which revolve around these mysterious figures from the east traveling across the desert following the star in search of Jesus. But as they were guided, people can quite easily be misguided as we are told in Matthew1: 9 the star appeared to the magi at the time of the birth in the East, in their own country, so by the time they arrive, the birth, the stable, the angels and the shepherds that we reflect upon at Christmas are but a memory, and Ch 2:1 clearly states the magi arrived “after Jesus was born”, and Herod himself showed this as he ordered all male children from 2yrs and under to be killed as he had determined from the Wise Men in Ch 2: 16.
Their visit however is important as the star is part of Old Testament prophecy and ultimately leads the Magi to look, follow and seek Jesus so that they can offer gifts worthy for a king.
So why did the Magi come? And how did they know this star had something to do with Jesus’ birth? It all has to do with the prophecy that we are looking at today from Numbers Ch24.
But in order to fully understand this prophecy, we must first look at the background of the prophecy. In what context was this prophecy given? Who gave this prophecy and why? And finally, what were the main events leading up to the prophecy? Perhaps if we explore the background of this prophecy we will be ready to look at the actual content of the prophecy in Numbers Ch24 and then finally the fulfilment of the prophecy in the New Testament.
The background of the prophecy is found in the words of blessing and cursing connected with three specific individuals in the Old Testament – Abraham, Balak and Balaam. Now you’re probably more familiar with Abraham than with either Balak or Balaam, but all three are important to the background of this prophecy.
When God first called Abraham, he spoke words of blessing and cursing to him in Genesis 12: 1-2, as God told Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” And then he goes further in verse 3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God makes Abraham therefore the dividing line here between a blessing or a curse. So, we now learn that the godly seed will continue through Abraham as God has promised to make Abraham into a great nation. He will bless those who bless Abraham and curse those who curse Abraham. All nations will therefore be blessed through Abraham and his seed.
Next, we come to Balak and for his part in this prophesy you need to fast forward from the time of Abraham to the time of Moses. By this time God had fulfilled his promise of making Abraham into a great nation. God brings the nation of Israel out of Egypt to the borders of the promised land, where they travel to the plains of Moab and camp along the Jordan across from Jericho.
Now Balak is the king of Moab, and when he sees all the Israelites spread out along the border of his country, he is terrified, and he sends for Balaam the prophet. He tells Balaam in Numbers 22: 5-6, “A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.”
Notice the words of blessing and cursing here. Balak wants Balaam to come and put a curse on the people of Israel, because he believes that whoever Balaam blesses will be blessed and whoever Balaam curses will be cursed.
But there’s just one problem here, because God is the one who blesses and curses as we read when He spoke to Abraham and furthermore God has already promised to bless the Israelites! In fact, God has promised to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel. So, if Balak attempts to curse Israel, not only will the curse fail, but he will only succeed in bringing that curse back on himself and his own nation.
All this brings us to Balaam. Balaam is an interesting individual but one we mostly remember because of his donkey, (what an epitaph to have) as God spoke to Balaam through his donkey to warn him about the reckless path he was taking in answering Balak’s call to curse the Israelites.
Balaam is the speaker of the prophecy we are looking at, and yet Balaam is an unbeliever. He is a pagan prophet who was motived by covetousness and greed. And yet, God still used him to deliver this amazing prophecy about the star. You might wonder how God could use a pagan, unbelieving prophet to deliver prophecy.
Perhaps that’s the whole point of the donkey because if God can speak through a donkey, he can certainly speak through Balaam.
Balaam actually gives four prophecies about Israel in these passages, as Balak keeps telling Balaam to curse the Israelites, but each time Balaam speaks, God makes words of blessing come out of his mouth instead! In fact, in his very first prophecy, Numbers 23: 8, Balaam tells Balak: “How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?” The whole scene is pretty comical as Balak keeps moving Balaam around to different locations to see if the curse will work there, but Balaam just keeps on blessing Israel.
And Balak keeps getting madder and madder until he eventually tells Balaam in v25, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”
But Balaam is on a roll now, and he just can’t stop himself. He continues prophesying and blessing Israel, until finally Balak tells him to go home. But before he leaves Balaam speaks one final prophecy about Israel, and this is the prophecy we are looking at today – the prophecy of a great star, our second great prophecy of Christmas.
So, we have looked at the background of the prophecy. Now let us look at the actual content of the prophecy which is found in Balaam’s fourth prophecy about Israel – the prophecy of the star and the sceptre found in Numbers 24:17 where Balaam prophesies: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a sceptre will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.”
The star and the sceptre are both royal terms. Together they speak of a coming ruler or king. This is a Messianic prophecy pointing to the coming of the Messiah.
First, Balaam says that a star will come out of Jacob. Now Jacob is another name for Israel, but when you see Jacob’s name in the Bible, we should remember Abraham and Isaac as well, as they were the three patriarchs of faith that God established His covenant through. And so, this star is a reminder of God’s promise to Abraham that God will make him into a great nation and that all nations will be blessed through him.
And furthermore, Jesus will later identify himself with this star in Revelation 22:16 when he says: “I, Jesus … am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” The Root and Offspring of David are clear Old Testament references to the Messiah. Here, Jesus combines the messianic prophecies concerning the root of David with the messianic prophecy about the star and says that he is the fulfilment of both.
So first, Balaam says a star will come out of Jacob. Secondly Balaam says that a sceptre will rise out of Israel. This is also messianic language stretching back to the book of Genesis. In Genesis Ch 49 Jacob is old and dying. He calls for his twelve sons in order that he might bless them, and he speaks words of prophecy over these twelve future tribes of Israel.
When he gets to his son Judah, he says this about the tribe of Judah in Genesis 49:10; “The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” This prophecy of the sceptre is foretold that Judah would produce a royal line of kings leading to the Messiah who will rule over all the nations.
And so, you can see how God keeps narrowing down the line of the Messiah throughout the Old Testament prophecies.
First, we learn that the Messiah will be the seed of the woman in Genesis 3. Then we learn that he will be from the seed of Abraham in Genesis 12 and continued through Isaac and Jacob. Then we learn that he will come from the tribe of Judah here in Genesis 49. Later prophecies will narrow it down even further telling us that the Messiah will be a descendant of David and that he will be born in a specific town of Judah, the little town of Bethlehem.
So, Balaam in his prophecy speaks first of the star and the sceptre, referring to this coming ruler and king from the tribe of Judah. And then he says in Numbers 24:17 that this ruler will crush the heads of Israel’s enemies. “He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.” Remember, God told Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.” Moab tried to curse Israel, and so Moab receives God’s curse instead.
Of course, this “head-crushing” language brings us back to the first prophecy of Christmas in Genesis 3:15 where God told the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” In trying to curse Israel, Moab shows themselves to be the seed of the serpent, and so they will share in the crushing of the head prophesied back in Genesis 3:15.
By bringing together the background and the content of the prophecy, this is what we have so far. The star and the sceptre refer to a future king from the tribe of Judah who will bring victory over Israel’s enemies and blessing to the nations.
And all this now leads us to the fulfilment of the prophecy as found in the star of Bethlehem.
We read in Matthew 2: 1-2 how the magi saw the star and came to Jerusalem: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
These magi were also known as wise men, astrologers, or magicians. They would have come from the area of Babylon or Persia, which is also where Balaam came from. In fact, Balaam was an early example of a magi with others in the books of Exodus and Daniel.
These magi had access to the Old Testament scriptures which were dispersed to their area when the Jewish people, (including the prophet Daniel), were exiled, so these magi would have been familiar with Balaam’s prophecies. And as astrologers they would have been particularly interested in his prophecy of the star. Therefore, when they see this unusual star in the sky, they relate it back to Balaam’s prophecy and understand from the prophecy that the Jewish Messiah has come into the world. And so, they come to Jerusalem seeking the one who has been born King of the Jews.
When they find Jesus (not however in a stable laying in a manger, but in a house), they bow down and worship him as king. We read this in Matthew 2: 9-11 “They went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.”
These are gifts fit for a king, and this
is the fulfilment of the sceptre part of the prophecy – the Messiah-King born
in the line of Judah who will rule over the nations and all nations will be blessed through Christ.
Another thing to take notice of is “They came to Jerusalem.” The star had disappeared, and so they go to the wrong place as Jesus was not in Jerusalem. It was Herod’s chief priests and scribes who quoted Micah 5:2 and therefore, in v8 Herod sent them to Bethlehem, but when they left v9 tells us that “they saw the star once again and followed it to where Jesus was”. Isn’t this a very easy mistake for people to make today as they look for Jesus in the wrong place. It would be easy to think that Jesus, the Messiah King would be born in Jerusalem, that great and impressive city with its temple full of religious leaders, rather than to personally seek him. How sad it is that people don’t desire to seek Jesus at all, or they simply look for something in the wrong place. While others can go to some churches for many years and never find Jesus and sadly in many cases are not even told how to find Jesus.
One more thing to take notice of is that these wise men came looking. Can you imagine them walking through the streets of Jerusalem asking: “WHERE IS HE?” Do you see their enquiring minds. Although they had riches and status they hungered for something more and they were not too proud to ask?
If only we could see people walking through the streets of Lawshall, Bury, Gt Barton, Ipswich or Dunstable asking, “WHERE IS HE?” If only there was a hunger for something more in the people of this nation!
And as we saw earlier when we looked at the background of the prophecy, this all relates back to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that all nations will be blessed through Christ. We can also read an additional and related prophecy in Isaiah 60: 1-3 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you…. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”
Surely, the magi are an early fulfilment of this prophecy of people coming from distant nations seeking Christ to worship him.
Both at the beginning and the end of his gospel, Matthew emphasises that Christ is for all people from all nations. At the beginning of the gospel, the Magi come from a distant nation seeking Christ to worship him. And at the end of Matthew’s gospel in, Matthew 28:19. Jesus gives his disciples the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations.
This is the second Christmas prophesy. Surely, this is the meaning of the star. As Jesus the Messiah has come into the world as the king who will bring victory over God’s enemies and a blessing to all nations.
As the angel said to the shepherds out in the fields that first Christmas night: in Luke 2:10 “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” God’s great promise to Abraham that “all nations will be blessed through you” is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus – as foretold in the prophecy of the star in Numbers 24 and fulfilled in the star in Matthew 2.
The star is therefore a reminder of both blessing and cursing. Remember when God made Abraham the dividing line? “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you,” in Genesis 12:3.
Now Jesus is the dividing line.
Everyone who comes to Jesus for salvation finds blessing from God. But the star also contains a warning for those who reject Jesus as their Saviour because Jesus is the dividing line between blessing and cursing. When you put your trust in him, you will be blessed but when you reject him as Saviour, you place yourself under God’s judgement.
Now you have a choice! Today you can choose either blessing or cursing.
This is the message of the star and the meaning of this second great prophecy of Christmas.
The star invites people to look, to seek and to follow Jesus just as the magi did. It points to Jesus as a baby in a manger, but it also points to the cross of crucifixion where we find Christ the seed of the woman fulfilling Gods promise to defeat Satan as the perfect sacrifice and therefore invites us to come to Him and know the blessing and favour of God that comes to all who put their trust in Him. Because as Christ is the One who calls.
