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Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2, beginning the reading at the verse number 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, "Behold, wise men from the east

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came to Jerusalem saying, 'Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king heard this he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the

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Christ was to be born. They told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.' Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from

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them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, 'Go and search diligently for the child and when you have found him bring me word that I too may come and worship him.' When they had heard the king they went their way and lo the star which they had seen in the east went before them till it came

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to rest over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold and frank incense and myrrh. And being

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warned in a dream not to return to Herod they departed to their own country by another way." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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Matthew's Gospel chapter 2, the 10th verse. When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. I'd like to think with you this morning about the star and as we meditate about it I would suggest that we will learn something about the moral law of God and also about the very essence of

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love. For in the star we find not only testimony to the sovereignty of God but to his providence as well. Now there have been many theories advanced across the years as to what the star was. Early scholars said it was Venus. Later scholars including Kepler said that it was a conjunction of two planets such as

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Jupiter and Saturn. Some have argued that the star was in fact a comet. But across all of the years these theories have been laid aside as failing to explain the heavenly phenomena for one reason or another. Really only one view is held seriously with regard to the nature of the star today and confronting that view

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brings us into confrontation with one of the most amazing spectacles in all of the natural world. As you know, stars as we observe them here from the earth appear to be quite steady in their brilliance. Eon after eon they were there for us to see. The North Star for example looked the same to dinosaurs as it did

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to Neanderthal man as it did to Moses as it does to us. But occasionally there is a phenomenon in nature in which a star for some reason which we do not understand explodes. Now an exploding star is called a nova and in a nova it is quite possible for the star to be magnified in its brilliance more than a

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hundred thousand times in less than a few hours. Now these novas are seen in the heavens quite regularly. You need an astronomer to see them. It's not an unusual celestial event. They are observed as being far far away, too far for us to see with the naked eye, but it is not an unusual spectacle in the

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universe. However, far more rarely there occur those novas which are especially large in size. They are called supernovas and a supernova will magnify the brilliance of a star a thousand million times. The last supernova that has been observed in detail here on earth was in the year 1604 and it was so brilliant

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that the star could be viewed in the daytime as well as at night. Now the theory with regard to the origin of the star of Bethlehem that is most held and and held up for examination and approval today is this. That 3,000 years before Jesus was born, back in the days when the great pyramids in Egypt were being

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finished, 3,000 years before the Bethlehem experience, God caused a supernova to occur out in space 18 quadrillion miles from the earth. That's the number 18 with 15 zeros after it. Now the reason this had to happen some 3,000 years before Christ was born was because it was going to take that long

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for the light from that supernova to travel through space and to be visible here on the earth. And when it did become visible here, this spectacle was so rare and unusual that the most sophisticated astronomers of the day, those who never would have been impressed with Venus or Jupiter or Saturn or comets or those

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other ideas which have been laid aside, those persons long ago who knew most about the heavens would have seen something the like of which they had never seen before, and it would have been enough to have led them to get up and follow that star to the cradle of a king. Now of course we have no proof about

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this Bethlehem supernova, but it is the most likely of the celestial explanations, and if it is true, it has some very astonishing implications for us and our believing. And I would ask you today to just notice three of them with me. First, this. The Bethlehem supernova speaks of the stability of God's order.

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Think of it. Three thousand years before Christ was born, God uses his laws of space, his laws of light, his laws of the nature of novas, laws which we don't even understand to this point, God uses these laws to put this spectacular birth announcement in the skies. This orderly God, moving in orderly process according

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to his orderly ways, brings the kings to the cradle. This speaks to me most eloquently of the fact that we live in a universe. Una meaning one. There is one guiding intellect at the center of it. There is one who thought of it. There is one who created it. There is one who balanced it. There is one who ordered it.

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There is one who established its natural laws, whether they apply to supernovas or to sunflowers. And this same God who established this precise order by which we set our watches and live out the seasons of our lives, this same God who established the precision of this natural order with such stability has

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established a moral order which is just as stable and just as certain. As history and creation testify to the stability of God's natural order, so history and creation testify to the stability of God's moral order. Now I hear someone say, "Well now, wait a minute. I understand what you're talking about when you talk

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about the natural order and its stability. The stars do move in their courses and gravity does prevail. I understand about those things. Those natural laws are not broken, but don't tell me that God's moral law is not broken. Don't tell me that it's equally stable." That's exactly what I'm seeking

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to tell you. For the fact of the matter is this. People do not succeed in breaking the moral order of God any more than they could go against the law of gravity. They don't break God's moral order, they break themselves against it. What we see in the collapsing society about us is not the collapse of God's will, but the

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collapse of individuals and institutions who hurl themselves into God's will and because they oppose it, are destroyed by it. The scriptures say God is not mocked. As we sow, so shall we reap. And the historian adding to that thought said this, "The mills of God grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine." In the end, as

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surely as the stars move in their courses, his moral teachings, his moral law moves to its inevitable conclusion. 65 years ago, some real estate developers out in California put up a big sign in a new place where they were trying to sell property and the sign said "Hollywood Land" and that sign stood there for many

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many years. It became in fact a kind of a symbol to many people across the country representing Hollywood, the world of pictures, the dramatic, romantic, exciting world of film stars and the like, a place of dreams. Well, across the years, the sign fell into decay, it was attacked by vandals and the like, and a few years ago

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some people got together and they rebuilt the sign. Now it simply reads "Hollywood" and it's made of steel and it stands four stories high and it has fences about it to protect it and the like. Hollywood. Does it still stand for the place where dreams come true? Oh no, it's a place of nightmares.

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Remember please, I lived five miles from Hollywood for five years. Hollywood is a place of prostitutes and flop houses and pussycat theaters and suicides and murders and more psychiatrists that are gathered than any other place on the face of the earth. Listen to the leaders of Hollywood as they appear to chat on

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television shows and talk about their drug days or about how they or their children have just come out of the Betty Ford Center or about how they're enjoying their third marriage or the abortion they just had or the implant that they're contemplating or the person that they're living with, the one with whom

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they're going to have a child outside of wedlock. Listen to them talk about their previous incarnations, defend their First Amendment rights to put any filth on the screen that they want to put there. Let them talk about the humor that they derive from the nude scenes that they play on the screens of America and their

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friends who have died of AIDS. They make a joke of the moral law of God. But I say to you this morning that that sign "Hollywood" has death written on it. But that sign in the sky, that Bethlehem supernova, that testimony to the sovereignty of God will literally go on forever. It started 5,000 years ago and

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it took 30 centuries for that light to reach to the earth. And 20 centuries have now passed on so that that light has now passed the earth but it is still spreading out into the universe until today it crosses a span of 10,000 light years and people on other planets are looking up into the night skies. Watchers

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in other worlds are suddenly seeing the brilliance of that sign in their heavens. And that light will continue to the very frontiers of space and time until a million, million worlds have seen it. And everywhere it goes it speaks of the majesty and the power of God eternally, of the stability of his natural and his

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moral order. It is absurd to think that one can get away with breaking the moral laws of God. It is as absurd as to believe that one could stopper or bottle or somehow contain a supernova. Is it any wonder that when they saw the star they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy? And notice this too. This Bethlehem supernova

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not only speaks of God's sovereignty, of the permanence and the immutability of God's moral law, but it also speaks of God's providence. It tells us of his love for us. It speaks of stability on the one hand and of stabilimentaryism on the other. Do you know that word stabilimentaryism? It's not used much

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anymore. A stabilimentary thing is something which supports, something which balances, something which steadies. You've heard about how an airplane has a stabilizer on it and the stabilizer is designed to keep the craft flying on an even keel as it moves through the air. Well, this star not only has the

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stability which comes from the announcement of the certainty and the power of God's law, but it also has a stabilizing function. It demonstrates to us that God is concerned about us, that God is concerned for us. It's not only testimony to his power, but also to his compassion. Across the years I've had

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many opportunities to minister to our military chaplains and their families, both in this country and other countries as well. And I've always enjoyed our times with our chaplains. And I remember on one occasion asking an older chaplain, retired, how he would answer a young man who would come to him, let us say in the

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Second World War, and he would ask for special prayers that he might be brought through some engagement safely. And the chaplain would say, and this is what the retired chaplain shared with me, "I would say to him, 'Son, I can't give you special prayers. I cannot pray anything for you that I would not pray for everyone who's

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going out on the mission. But this is what I can do. I can go with you. I can go with you.'" And you see, that's what this splendid, scintillating, spectacular sign in the sky said. "I cannot protect you from all the bruises and the heartaches of life, because the sinful nature of humankind has befouled the universe. It

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is not what I made it to be, but," God says, "this star is testimony that I will be with you." Howard Thurman was one of the great preachers of the 20th century, and in his book "Jesus and the Disinherited," he tells of how when he was a very little boy, Halley's Comet came around. Because he was so young, he was in bed every

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night and didn't see it, but he heard all kinds of things about it. So one night, having questioned his mother much, she wakened him in the middle of the night and took him out into the backyard, and he stood there and looked at the comet with its great fan tails spread across the sky. It was much more spectacular in

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that passing than in the more recent passing a couple of years ago. And writing of this many, many years later, Thurman said, "I felt the silence of absolute motion, and I asked my mother, 'What will happen if the comet falls out of the sky?' And my mother didn't answer. And I turned and I looked at her, and as

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she looked up into the heavens, I saw the same light on her face that I saw when she prayed. And she said to me, 'Never fear, Howard. The comet is just another sign that God will take care of us.'" There's great eloquence in the testimony of that pious woman. "Never fear. The same God who keeps the stars in his courses cares

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about us. Never fear. The same God who brings supernovas into existence cares about us. Never fear. The same God who with one hand demonstrates the immutability of his law, on the other hand demonstrates the immutability of his love. He manages the magnificence of the sidereal and also is involved in

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stabilizing the magnificence of the individual soul. I am with you." Just think of it. Five thousand years ago, 18 quadrillion miles out into space, God caused an explosion of light which still spreads throughout the universe. What a calling card. And what does it symbolize? That nova speaks of his nearness. Is it

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any wonder that when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy? Just one last thought. That Bethlehem supernova not only speaks of stability and stabiliment, but it also speaks of stables. That's where it led the kings, you know, to a stable. I imagine that was something of a surprise to them. They

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probably expected it to come to rest maybe above a palace, a mansion, some royal estate. As they stood there on that Judean hillside and looked down at dirty, little, unkempt, undistinguished Bethlehem, I think they must have thought to themselves, "There must be some kind of mistake here." But the fact is, you see,

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that stars usually take us where we don't want to go. God's stars, you see, always lead to stables. That's the testimony across all of the scriptures. Look at the story of Abraham, or Moses, or Jeremiah, or Amos, or Peter, or Paul. They all started out on a journey which ended in a place of service, in some lowly

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place like a stable. I remember once when I was out of the West, being low in gas and seeing signs along the side of the road, "Gas ahead five miles, four miles," and so on. And last I saw this huge sign up ahead, "Gas," and I pulled up and that's all that was there. A great big sign that said, "Gas." All the pumps were gone and the

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buildings were gone, everything was gone. Here was the sign, "Gas," and around it, the broken and the discarded and the ignored. And you know, that's always been a parable to me, that when we follow God's sign and a star is nothing but gas and a supernova, an exploding star, when we follow his sign, it brings us inevitably

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to the place where the broken and the discarded and the ignored are to be found. This, my friends, is the very nature of God. This is why he came, to testify to the stability of his law, yes, and to testify to the stabilizing power of his law, yes, but to also say, "Those of you who know this, go into the stables of

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life and heal and help and bring hope." God did not come in the sunshine. He came in the dark. The sound of the Gloria ex Chelseas was not heard at noonday, it was heard at midnight. It was in a stable that you heard the rustle of the wings and the whisper of God saying, "Behold, I make all things new." This is the reason

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he says, "When you do it to the least of my brethren, you are doing it to me." You know, the most fundamental error which I encounter in most Christians' experience is this. They fully understand the moral law of God, and by that law, they live decent lives, seeking to be morally clean and pure. And they also understand the

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importance and the reality of the presence of God in life, and many of them have very beautiful devotional experiences based on their experience of God, but so many never are in the stables. There is no stewardship. There is no sacramental service. There is no representation or understanding of the

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fact that the same God who commands the stars commands his servants, and he says to them, "When you do not go to the least of the brethren, you do not go to me." Kings on their knees in straw-y stables are what that star inevitably leads to. And if you translate that into the language of everyday discipleship, it

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brings us Jesus' words, "Whosoever would be my disciple, let him take up his cross, go into his stable, and follow me." Last week I made the mistake of going out to the Carnegie International Exhibition out in Oakland. Dreadful thing. Artistically without skill, morally without message. It is both technically

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and experientially a depressing adventure. But after you've gone through it room after room, and it's interesting to watch the people go through it, they go through it like they were running for a race, I mean, like this. At the end, you go into two rooms where previous winners of earlier international exhibitions are

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on display. Some of them are magnificent. There's Rewaltz, the old king. And I sat in one of those rooms and I watched these same people who had hurried like billiard balls just bouncing off the walls as they went through this exhibition. And then they came into this room and they would stop, especially

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before one painting. It's one of the great treasures which we have here in Pittsburgh. Pierre-Auguste Renoir's The Gardens of Montmartre. A large canvas, two men standing in a garden. So green and lush, so filled with flowers, so beautiful to behold that you can't just walk by it. You have to stop and look at it. You have

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to stop and look at it. And it reaches out and it kind of caresses your heart. And I watched the people doing that. And I thought about Renoir and of how arthritis twisted his hands so horribly and painfully that he had to wrap the handles of his paintbrushes with rags because he couldn't stand the pain of

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gripping the wood and the rag somehow made that pain a little more bearable. And one of his friends said to him one day as he was laboring on a canvas with these wounded hands of his, "Why do you keep on painting? You have already created masterpieces. Why not stop now and enjoy what you have done?" And without

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a moment's pause, Renoir replied, "The pain passes but the beauty lasts." And that's what the Bethlehem supernova says. If you understand the law of God and the love of God and if you go into stables with that message, yes, you will have pain. But the pain passes and the beauty lasts. Those who understand that know why it is

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written on the pages of Scripture. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. Let us pray. Our Father, as this time of Christmas tide now draws to its end, and on this twelfth night as we put away the trees and the tinsel, the lights and the mantle

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decorations, grant that the star atop the tree or greeting us on so many cards that have come through the mail, grant that the star, the Bethlehem supernova, might burn continually within us as it burns in time and space for a million worlds to see. And in the light of that star, may we be reminded to be obedient to your

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law, dependent upon your love, and sacrificial in the service of others to the praise and the glory of your name. We pray it through Christ Jesus. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]