Journey To The Manger, Part 2

The Journey To The Manger, part 2

Last week, we talked about the journey that took place, through the blood line of Jesus, to get to the manger.

And how God had used all kinds of different people, men and women.

some less then perfect, truth be known, they were all less than perfect, we all are

But none the less, they were all willing participants and they all had at least 2 things in common with each other,

They all had a love for the things of God and they all had the faith,

that He would follow through with everything that He said He would do and keep His Promises!

As we study this part of the journey, Mary and Joseph were no exception to the rule,

they must have been extraordinary, in the eyes of God.

Think about it, To have the honor of being selected to be the participants, in the most important event in the history of the world,

Mary to be the mother of the promised Messiah and Joseph, to be Jesus earthly father

So many prophecies had been made concerning the coming Messiah and all of them, up to that point had be fulfilled.

And now Mary and Joseph were about to make the final leg of the Journey!

Luke 2:1-5 NKJ

1. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

2. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

3. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

4. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

5. to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife,[a] who was with child.

Caius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, for centuries, the emperors of Rome had ruled the civilized world with great power!

Nation after nation had fallen victim to the Romans and their Army,

One of those nations was Syria and one of the provinces in Syria was Judea,

the home of the remnant of the Jews of the nation of Israel.

The Jews who lived in Judea were oppressed greatly,

Israel had disobeyed God and fallen into apostasy and idolatry.

And thus, God had not spoken to his own people, His chosen nation for 400 years.

For 4 centuries, not one Prophet or one word from God, had appeared in Israel.

There was a famine in the Land of Israel. Not a famine of food or drink,

but of the Word of God and the presence of God.

Can you imagine, for even one day, a world without the presence of God in it?

They had lost everything, Israel had long ago been robbed of its wealth and power.

All the individual citizens had been taxed heavily to support the Roman Government

and to fill the pockets of the governors and rulers that Rome had put into place,

without any consideration of what the people thought.

Kind of sounds like it is still today, huh?

The more things change in the world, the more they seem the same, don’t they?

This was the atmosphere of the world, that Jesus was getting ready to be a part of.

Caesar had ordered that all the land of Judea should be counted in a census,

so that no one would escape the new taxation to support the lavish Roman government.

To make matters worse, every man who lived in the Land of Judea had to return to his place of birth to register for the census.

This is a key part of the story about the Journey, You see, Jesus according to bible prophecy, was to born in Bethlehem,

However Joseph and Mary, were living in Nazareth, some 70 miles away from Bethlehem.

The whole ordeal of the census, must have caused great concern for Joseph,

Because, he knew that someway, somehow, he needed to make the long and dangerous journey,

He had no doubt done many times, but never under these circumstances, to his hometown of Bethlehem.

It was going to be a difficult journey, considering he didn’t have much money and there was no public transportation,

People in those days, pretty much walked everywhere they went,

There were no frequent flier miles, no restaurants or motels along the way, and even if there would have been,

there was no extra money for something like that.

The roads were long and hard, who are we kidding, they were made of dirt,

There was no way of knowing, what kind of dangers lurked around the corner.

It’s a journey that would have been bad enough taking with an army battalion, let alone by yourself,