When jesus came to this world from heaven. He came as a tiny baby. He could not walk. He could not talk. He had to learn to do these things as other children do.
Jesus is the only one who has ever come from heaven and become a human being. (This is called the incarnation, meaning in the flesh) God appeared in a body. Says 1 Timothy 3:16, and it is called a mystery. Jesus was born of a virgin without a natural father. By the power of God through the holy spirit
(On the one God in three persons) satan hated this child bitterly and tried to kill him. He knew that this child was the promised son. Called the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father. Isaiah 9:6. Whose rule of love and justice and mercy was to last forever.
That is why satan hated him bitterly, and tried, soon after his birth to kill him. He made king Herod think that jesus would grow up and try to be king in his palace. Herod did not know where the jesus lived in Bethlehem so he decided to kill all the boy babies there. Then he would be sure to get rid of jesus.
But God in heaven could not allow this. Jesus had come to live in this world and grow up to show us what God is like. Here is what jesus and his father had planned to do for us. As a human being jesus would live a perfect, sinless life by the help of God, his father. He would count this sinless life as our life when we became his children.
Then, even though we had sinned, God would forgive us if we asked him. Then he would accept us as though we had never sinned. Jesus' perfect life would count for ours. Then he would help us, day by day, to live like him. Later jesus would die the death that we should die for our sins.
This is not the death that people die now. It is the everlasting death which comes to the people who choose satan for their leader. But God protected jesus when jesus was young because jesus had a great work yet to do. What a beautiful plan God the father and his son, jesus, had to show us what he is like and to save us.
But satan wanted to destroy the whole plan. He meant to do this by using king herod to get rid of the baby jesus. In imagination let's go over to Bethlehem long ago. It is night. The stars shine brightly. There lies baby jesus in his mother's arms. Mary and Joseph are sound asleep. We wait and look.
Suddenly, joseph awakens mary and whispers to her. He tells her that an angel just came to him in a dream. The angel has said. Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until i tell you. For herod is going to search for the child to kill him. Egypt away over in Africa. Baby jesus will not be safe in his own country.
His parents must take him to Africa. The angel of the lord has said so. So they quickly prepare for their journey. It is several hundred miles from Bethlehem to where they will go in Egypt. Over the hills they travel. Over rocks. Accross the sand. Through valleys. At last they reach Egypt in Africa. Not to Europe or the east does the angel tell them to go but to Africa.
I think God will someday reward those kind African people of long ago who helped Joseph find a place to stay and to do carpentry work. Maybe they did not know that this child was the son of God. Yet they were probably kind neighbors. Time went by. Then one night while Joseph was asleep an angel of the lord came again in a dream. He said.
Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead. Joseph took mary and jesus back to Israel. Again he had a dream that warned him not to stay in judea. So he took his family to Galilee. To Nazareth. Satan had wanted to kill jesus. God sent the good angels to protect him.
Sometimes satan gives us hard times. We know he is trying to harm us. But we know that God sends his good angels to help us and protect us even though we may not have a dream or see them. Let us trust our heavenly father to care for us as he did for jesus.
You can read this story in the new testament. How herod tried to kill the baby jesus. Matthew 2:13-23. You can read the rest of the story in jesus' birth. How it was announced to his mother beforehand by an angel. How angels appeared to shepherds on the night of his birth. And how the wise men from the east were larer led by a wonderful star to visit him bringing gifts. These stories are in luke 1:26-38; 2:1-20 and Mathew 1:18-2:23
