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CONNIE: Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery.

LONNIE: And I'm Lonnie Melashenko. Connie, today's program is part three of our series on The Story behind the Christmas Story. We're looking at the trip the Holy Family made from Bethlehem down to Egypt.

CONNIE: You know, I'd never really thought much about it before, but it is a rather long detour.

LONNIE: That's for sure. A quick glance at a map reveals that Egypt is something like 300 miles due south, while Joseph and Mary's hometown Nazareth is about 80 miles due north.

CONNIE: Why do you suppose the angel that appeared to Joseph in a dream told him to take Jesus and Mary SOUTH to Egypt?

LONNIE: Well, we'll be looking at some possible answers to that question a bit later in the program, but for right now, let me toss out a little hint. Think back to the earliest days of Israel's history, and what Egypt meant to them back then.
CONNIE: Pharaoh . . . Slavery . . . Plagues . . . Miraculous deliverance.

LONNIE: You're on the right track, and I'll have more to say about that in today's message, "Out of Egypt." But before that, another story. Music is such an important part of the Christmas season, that we've invited a Christian musician to join us for each of our programs this month, to share their story, and some of their Christmas music. Joining us today is my good friend Jaime Jorge,

LONNIE: Welcome to the broadcast Jaime.

JAIME: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be able to be here in the flesh not just a little music or the violin, but here in person.

LONNIE: And Jaime Jorge is a world class violinist virtuoso I call him. You've played before kings and governors Crystal Cathedral, names like Larnel Harris, Billy Graham. You've traveled what 3,000,000 miles now?

JAIME: Just a little bit over.

LONNIE: One year you were in Brazil. How many times?

JAIME: Six times.

LONNIE: And all this began what at about the age of three four five years of age by a godly mother with that little violin in the country of Cuba.

JAIME: That's right. I was actually playing the saxophone. The plastic Saxophone at the age of three and my mom decided that I would be playing the violin and that I was going to take violin lessons and the rest is history I guess.

LONNIE: You didn't really enjoy some of those years did you?

JAIME: No, I sure didn't. I used to tell my mom, that when I grow up, I'm going to take the violin and flush it down the toilet.

LONNIE: Somewhere something clicked and you began to discover dedicating your talent to Jesus Christ was very special, wasn't it?

JAIME: Absolutely, two things, number one when we give our talents to God that something special happens because that is turned into something positive and it's for His glory. And number two I realized the incredible power music had with people and I wanted to use that properly.

LONNIE: Now, you were at a very very young age when your family was literally dug out of Egypt weren't you down in Havana Cuba.

JAIME: That's correct my dad wrote a letter to Castro and told him that he had been trying to leave for many many years, that we wouldn't be allowed to leave, because they didn't want us to. He said, if he ever left he'd denounce his government for the rest of his life, and all of a sudden they basically came to throw us out of Cuba.

LONNIE: Hmmm, could've gone out in a body bag.

JAIME: Just about.

LONNIE: But you came to America. What were your feelings when you finally got here?

JAIME: You know it's something I'll never forget and it's hard to describe to be able to breathe an air that seemed different to see grapes to chew gum to eat apples to see how people were nice to you on the streets and courteous was just overwhelming at first.

LONNIE: Now, you have so many stories in your life Jaime on how the Lord has carved you out of Egypt so to speak. I wish we could talk about Chartise and how you won some championships with that incredible classical song that had 128 notes and then you got into medical school but God had other plans for you didn't He.

JAIME: Well, I always thought that I wanted to be a missionary medical doctor, but the Lord had other plans and at the second year of the University of Illinois I got the hint and I said "okay I'm going to go leave out in faith Lord and you take care of the rest.", and that's what's happened ever since.

LONNIE: So, half way through you made a deliberate choice and said "it's you or me here."

JAMIE: That's right, I was giving up a great deal of security, stability to do something you know kind of Gypsy like, but it worked out because whenever the Lord blesses you when He blesses us you are doing His will He is going to take care of us.

LONNIE: Share some of your greatest joys you've had using your violin to go to be a worldwide international ambassador for Jesus Christ. And Jaime you have got to be one of the finest we've got out there.

JAIME: Well, I only praise the Lord for what I'm able to do and I remember particularly one time a year and a half ago when I was in Orlando and a young lady came up to talk to me until the program was over and you mentioned that championship that talent show, if you will, in school in college that I played at. She was actually there and she said to me, you're not going to believe this, but I was there and heard you ten years ago. She said "I had a tumor in my brain and I was blind and I was going in for surgery the next day and I had a 50/50 chance of coming out of there alive." And she said all that she could remember is the young man playing the violin the music was so different and I said God if you allow me to come out of this place alive I want to be different like that young man and here I am standing in church today. That just blows me away because I'm not worthy of those kinds of blessings, yet the Lord uses us whenever we're willing to be used by Him.

LONNIE: That's marvelous. Really that's the story behind the Christmas story behind a very special Christmas story isn't it Jaime?

JAIME: That's right I was also plucked out of Egypt, if you will, and as I thought of this I wanted to make sure. Like the little drummer boy that touched me very much. That I used all of my talents, everything that I have for God's glory not for anyone else's gain not for my own gain, but for God that's what I want to do
LONNIE: Beautiful, let's listen now to Jaime Jorge with the "Little Drummer Boy".

"The Little Drummer Boy", Jaime Jorge.

CONNIE: Jaime certainly has a wonderful musical gift--I especially enjoy WATCHING him play. He really gets into his music!

LONNIE: He's a very dedicated musician. We always have him take part in our Voice of Prophecy Family Reunion concerts, and he's a joy to work with.

CONNIE: If you'd like to know more about Jaime and his recordings, or the Family Reunion Concerts, you'll find that information on our web page at www.vop.com. The next concert comes up in March, doesn't it, Lonnie?

LONNIE: Yes, March 3 in Fort Worth, Texas, we'll have more than 100 musicians involved, including Jaime.

CONNIE: Jaime's CD, "Christmas in the Aire" is also available for ordering from Voice of Prophecy. You can use our regular toll-free number to order it, and the cost is just $15.00. You can order it by calling 1-800-872-0055.

LONNIE: It's full of wonderful Christmas music

CONNIE: Now Lonnie, your message today, "Out of Egypt," is part of our series called "The Story Behind the Christmas Story." But there's a story behind the series as well, isn't there?

LONNIE: Yes, there is. In 1999 we had the privilege of taking a camera crew over to the Holy Land to film several programs--spiritual documentaries I guess you could call them--that revealed some amazing aspects of events that were happening in Israel at the time of Jesus' birth.

One of the fascinating stories we traced happened down in Jericho. Ken Wade, our producer, was the one who ferreted out this story, and took me down to the ruins of an ancient swimming pool to help tell the story behind the Christmas story.

Ken, I must admit that I was fascinated by some of the places you took us to in Israel--places I'd never known existed, even though I'd been there on tours several times before.

I guess one of the most interesting had to be that old swimming pool we found beside the old Jericho Road. I think our listeners would be interested to hear what an ancient swimming pool has to do with the Christmas story.

KEN: Yes Lonnie it's really a 2000-year-old murder mystery down there. Herod you know wasn't Jewish, but he was married to a Jewish woman a very prominent family, granddaughter actually of two different high priests.

LONNIE: Politically expedient for Herod of course.

KEN: Indeed, but she had a brother, a seventeen- year- old brother by the name of Aristobulous and the family persuaded Herod to name him high priest. Seemed like a good idea to start off with, but the trouble was the people liked Aristobulous better then they liked Herod.

LONNIE: He was a very jealous…

KEN: He was not the kind of man you wanted to stand in front of and so the story the takes place around this one. One day Herod threw a big party down at his palace down at Jericho. It was a winter palace and everybody was having a great time and Herod and Aristobulous were even frolicking around together, but what happened then was a lot of the people jumped in the swimming pool to go swimming and Heord said, "Aristobulous, why don't you go in to?"

LONNIE: And they started a game of dunking.

KEN: A little bit of a game of dunking. And it wasn't exactly fair. It wasn't weighted in Aristobulous' favor should we say. Unfortunately by the end of the day this high priest, brother of the wife of the king, was found floating face down in the pool. And of course Herod was immediately accused. The fingers were pointed at him.

LONNIE: That must have shaken up the people.

KEN: It shook up the people tremendusly. It would have been like the death of young John Kennedy here and princess Diana in England. It was a terrible terrible thing and Herod was never able to escape the accusations that he had something to do with Aristobulous' death, and of course that's one little key that kind of cues us in on the character of this man who shows up in the Christmas story, the man that Joseph and Mary have to flee to Egypt to stay safe.
LONNIE: Ken, the fascinating thing for me was to discover you've researched this is that Anthony and Cleopatra all play into this swimming pool and all have to do with the birth of Jesus.

KEN: Well they do. Yes all of these people we hear about in history were actually involved in this story and it's a fascinating thing we are able to deal with that in this story.

CONNIE: Thanks Ken and Lonnie for that historical perspective for the story behind the Christmas story.

LONNIE: I want to be sure our listeners know that the videos we produced in the Holy Land are available.

CONNIE: They can be ordered at our online bookstore at www.vop.com, but listeners can also call our toll-free number 1-800-872-0055 and request them. We do request a minimum donation of $20.00 for this 2-hour video series, so be sure to have a credit card available if you'd like to order the videos.

LONNIE: And Connie it is certainly is interesting to dig into the background and find out what the people mentioned in the Bible were really like. Our research into what happened down at Jericho helps us understand the kind of king Joseph and Mary had to flee from when they moved to Egypt.

CONNIE: But you know Lonnie I still have a question in my mind. Did God send his son into Egypt? Is there some special significance? Did Joseph's family's trip to the south and that's your topic in today's message, "Out of Egypt"

SERMON: Out of Egypt

LONNIE: Have you ever been on a long trip, spending weeks--maybe even months--on the road? Did you find yourself thinking about home every day? How nice it would be to just head back to where you came from, and to settle in to home life again?

Do you suppose Joseph and Mary felt that way after they'd spent a few weeks, or perhaps months, living in Bethlehem? We don't know just how long they stayed there after Jesus was born. But it was more than just a few days. Matthew tells us that when the wise men from the East came to visit, they found the family living in a house--no longer in a stable.

And we know that when King Herod wanted to be sure he got rid of the child who had been born king of the Jews, he massacred children up to the age of two. So, never mind the pictures on your Christmas cards. It's not likely that the wise men brought their gifts to baby Jesus in the manger. The family had moved into a house by time they got there.

So, Joseph and Mary had been away from home for a long time. And then that angel came and told Joseph to:

"Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him." (Matt. 2:13).

If it had been me, I think I might have had some questions: "Egypt? Why Egypt? Can't we just go home to Nazareth?"

But Joseph listened to God's instructions, and obeyed, and off they went to Egypt.
Matthew's Gospel gives us just the tiniest little clue as to why God put Egypt on their itinerary. Here it is in Matthew 2:14-15:

When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son."

Now, the fascinating thing about the prophecy that Matthew quotes is that the prophet Hosea was writing about history not the future when he penned those words. He was reminding his people about how God had led them out of Egypt--an event that occurred 700 years before his time and more than 1400 years before the birth of Jesus.

Hosea was looking back at the past, but Matthew took that reminiscence and showed how it applied to Jesus, who lived many years later.

Jesus came to this earth to set up God's kingdom here--to invite people like you and me to be a part of His kingdom. And He was not the first Jewish leader to take refuge in Egypt in preparation for setting up a New Kingdom.
Even the patriarch Abraham, the father of Israel, journeyed to Egypt once, as he walked with God, preparing to establish his family in the Promised Land.

And don't forget that Abraham's great-grandson Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, but God turned their wicked plans for good by preserving lives when famine struck. Joseph's father and all his brothers eventually moved down to Egypt too. And then when God was ready to establish Abraham's descendants as a nation, He called them out of Egypt.
There's another fascinating story about Israel and Egypt that's found in the Old Testament. Do you remember the story of Jeroboam? He was one of King Solomon's construction foremen. But then one day a prophet stopped him on his way out of town.

The prophet predicted that God would split the kingdom of Israel in two and make Jeroboam king of the largest portion. But of course that didn't make Solomon happy. He was just as excited about someone taking his kingdom away as King Herod was when he heard that Jesus had been born to be King of the Jews. He wanted Jeroboam dead. So Jeroboam fled from Solomon. And guess where he went.

Egypt.

He waited there until he heard that King Solomon was dead. Then he came back to Israel to claim the kingdom God had promised to him.
Does that sound like anything out of the Christmas story? How about this:
But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child's life are dead" (Matt. 2:19, 20, NKJ).

Finally, Joseph and Mary were able to go home. To take there young son back to their hometown, to live among family again. It must have been a great "Christmas" homecoming when they finally pulled their donkey into the garage back home in Nazareth.

They had wandered long and wandered far--but it wasn't really wandering--because God was leading them all the way. Joseph was responding to God's guidance at every crossroads on the map.

God had led them to Egypt so that--just like Abraham, just like ancient Israel, just like Jeroboam, Jesus could come "out of Egypt" to the promised land to set up God's new kingdom.

But what a different kingdom it would be!

Jeroboam's kingdom was a man's kingdom--the king soon began to do things his own way, rebelling against God and setting up idols for the people to worship.

But Jesus' kingdom--well, there was just no comparison. Everything that Jesus said and did was according to His heavenly Father's will. He faithfully followed His Father's instructions, just as Joseph had done.

"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me," Jesus said (John 6:38 NKJV).

It seems odd to us that Joseph took his family to Egypt. But it was all part of God's bigger plan. And, come to think of it, the story of the wise men who came to Bethlehem seems to be full of detours too. First to Jerusalem, then to Bethlehem, then back home by a different road.

It must have seemed to them like life was full of detours.

Does your life ever seem that way? I know there've been times like that for me. Times of illness, times of loss. But looking back on it, I can see that God had a plan all along.

Has it been that way for you as well? Or might it be that this Christmas season it seems like your life's gone way off the path--far from where you thought you should be by now? Maybe you HAVE made a wrong turn or two. Or it might be that God is just leading you to Nazareth, via Egypt.

Whichever it is, will you do this one simple thing: Turn your eyes toward heaven. Look up. Ask your heavenly Father to guide you to where you should be.

He has a plan for your life, and He'll be glad to guide you, just as He did Joseph, the wise men of the East, and Jesus. O Friend, turn to Him today. Let Him bring you Out of Egypt, and into His kingdom!