HIS STAR by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jan 24, 1906

"HIS STAR."

By Editor

THUS opens a record of earnest searching: "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him."

THIS is not Christmas time; and, if it were, it would matter not. Even though Christ were born on December 25 (which He was not), the wise men did not then find Him. The visit of the shepherds and the visit of the wise men are not identical, neither are they synchronous. They are two entirely different events, separated by weeks of time.

THE shepherds found the newborn babe in a manger; the wise men found Him in a house. After the shepherds' visit the poverty of Joseph's family was in no wise alleviated, for their offering was of the poorest sort (Luke 2:24); but after the visit of the magi the family had sufficient means to journey to Egypt and return. The shepherds were simple, devoted watchers of their flocks in the fields of Bethlehem; the magi were men of years and wisdom from lands farther east. The shepherds came in humble adoration, with the angels' song ringing in their ears; the magi came with worshiping faith, the light of the star shining in the heart.

THEY did not have the light—these wise men—that the doctors and scribes of the Jews had. Who they were, we do not know. The names of tradition or romance are only speculations. The language, the inquiry, the setting, the section from which they came, seem to carry us back to Balaam, the apostate prophet of the east, who once knew God, and who predicted Christ's coming to Balak of Moab:

"I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not nigh; There shall come forth a Star out of Jacob, And a Scepter shall rise out of Israel." Num. 24:17.

It also carries the mind of the Bible student to the patriarch Job and his friends, dwellers in the land of Uz, south and east of Jerusalem. But more likely they came from among the Persian magi, descendants or disciples of those who learned of the true God in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, and who then may have become acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures. Let this suffice, they discerned some light, and they followed it to the Central Light, and saw and worshiped.

WHENCE came they?—From the east. They did not look to the east to find the star; from the east they came. The mere direction may not in the lesson have meaning, but the east and the eastward attitude are meaningful words all through religious history, and in the Scriptures. The most ancient form of idolatry was morning sun-worship, the worship of the most manifest power in nature. Traces of it, or the actualities of it, abound all over the earth. It was one of the great sins of Israel. The ancient tabernacle and temple were placed with the door toward the east, so that the soul who came to worship, as well as the priest, stood with faces ever toward the presence of God in the holy of holies at the west. When the prophet of God was shown by symbol and vision the iniquities of Israel, that which, above all things else, revealed their awful degradation is thus described: "Thou shalt again see yet greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Jehovah's house; and behold, at the door of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east." And in Christian lands to-day there are those who follow the old heathen custom with altar eastward, toward which priest and people turn in worship. All such attitudes are of the old idolatries, and not of divine direction.

THE wise men came from the east with faith in a Fact. The Child was born, King of God's people, and they came to do Him homage, however lowly His earthly station. Faith made the Fact a living Truth in their lives, leading to devotion, consecration, and meekness—a willingness to be guided of God, as their subsequent action shows. They were seeking no favors of earthly monarchs, they were willing to be misunderstood of Herod, and their conduct counted as mockery, that they might obey and be guided of God. To the truly wise, God gives knowledge. They carried back into the east light from the west, light westward streaming over the dark places of earth. The old apostasies are in the East. Hinduism, Buddhism, Brahminism, Pantheism, which have enslaved millions, are of the East, and not of God. Their subtle philosophies, like the blasting "east wind" of Scripture, everywhere spoken against, are designed of the great deceiver to blast and blight, deceive and wither, the human soul. And it is one of the saddest of all sad things that professed teachers of Christ, the Light of the World, should, in the sophistries of the teaching of comparative religions, in learned disquisition, in religious congresses, seek to make peace with the devil over the decadent religions of the Orient, and to seek to prove that their withering blight, because, forsooth, they contain a few primitive truths amid the mass of their perversions, is one with Christianity. Well said the prophet of God's attitude toward these teachers, and the reason therefor: "Thou hast forsaken Thy people, . . . because they are filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners." Read Isa. 2:1-11.

CHRISTIANITY is a life, the life of God sent down from heaven to a dying world. It centers in a living Christ, the King of the Jews, who died that man might live; who lives that man may eternally, righteously live. It is not

to be compared, it can not be compared, with dry, dead forms of mixed fact and falsehood. "They are dead, they can not rise." Christ lives; His star still shines refulgent. It may, it will, lead to lowly places, down into the valley of Humility, but it leads to righteousness and life. Come out of the east with its fables, its deceptions, its self-salvation, its death, to the worship of the King.