There are several attributes of God we see in this portion of our story as God guides Joseph, Mary and Jesus through a dream after the Wise men depart.

Matthew 2:13-16  ^“Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” God had provided the means for their escape to Egypt with the costly gifts the Wise Men had brought. The providential care of God is all over this scene.

God knew about murderous Herod’s plans as He is omniscient and guided Joseph an his family to safety in Egypt. Matthew 2:16 “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.” We do not know why God did not stop this killing of innocent lives. Placing Jesus in Egypt was the right thing as prophecy had foretold God would call His son out of Egypt, verse 15.

After the passage of some time and their living in Egypt, Matthew 2:19-22 occurred “ But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, ²⁰ saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” ²¹ And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.” This placed Jesus and his family in Galilee and the town of Nazareth where he safely grew up until he started his ministry to the world.

Here we saw God and His sovereign power and wisdom protecting the young family and guiding them to safety. The attribute that comes to mind in all of this is Savior. God protected our savior and saved him from the wicked king Herod. He was Jesus’ Savior as Jesus is our Savior. God reached down and protected them just as He reached down through Jesus to rescue us from the penalty of our sins. They had no power to save themselves and neither do we. We were dead in our sins until God sent Jesus to save us by dying on the cross for our sins. Jesus is our SAVIOR. In this story we see how God saved Jesus and in turn saved us! Our savior is powerful and gives us, through faith in Him, the power to resist sin through His indwelling Holy Spirit. We are saved for eternity! Praise God. I particularly love Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” and Romans 5:8 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Both verses show our utter helplessness in the face of sin and God’s amazing grace and mercy towards us.

The question for today is, Do you know Jesus as your SAVIOR? He won’t come to you and save you unless you ask. You need to humble yourself before Him and repent of your sins THEN He will save you just as He promises. Claim 1 John 1:9 “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Know that this is true and that God is faithful every day in every way. Cling to His faithfulness, Hebrews 10:23 “ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Thank you Jesus for coming as our Savior and Thank you God for sending Him. We are blessed!!

Linda