The Archives Devotional Magazine June 2015 | Page 7

DAY 4
Then they returned to their country by another road,
since God had warned them in a dream not to go
back to Herod. After they had left, an angel of the
Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Herod
will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get
up, take the child and his mother and escape to
Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.” Joseph
got up, took the child and his mother, and left during
the night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod died.
This was done to make come true what the Lord had
said through the prophet, “I called my Son out of
Egypt.”
When Herod realized that the visitors from the
East had tricked him, he was furious. He gave orders
to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighborhood
who were two years old and younger—this was done
in accordance with what he had learned from the
visitors about the time when the star had appeared.
In this way what the prophet Jeremiah had said
came true: “A sound is heard in Ramah, the sound of
bitter weeping. Rachel is crying for her children; she
refuses to be comforted, for they are dead.” After
Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a
dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the
child and his mother, and go back to the land of
Israel, because those who tried to kill the child are
dead.” So Joseph got up, took the child and his
mother, and went back to Israel.
But when Joseph heard that Archelaus had
succeeded his father Herod as king of Judea, he was
afraid to go there. He was given more instructions in a
dream, so he went to the province of Galilee and
made his home in a town named Nazareth. And so
what the prophets had said came true: “He will be
called a Nazarene.”

Herod the Great was a Jew and started out as governor of Galilee, where he
crushed a revolt, and thus gained favor with Roman authorities. During the
Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. between Octavian (Caesar Augustus) and Mark
Antony (as in, Antony and Cleopatra), Herod changed his allegiance from
Anthony to Octavian at the last minute, securing his new position as King of
Israel. He had reigned for about 35 years when Jesus was born, having built
some of the most detailed and prodigious structures in the world, including the
rebuilding of the Temple, part of which still stands (The Wailing Wall). However,
he was extremely paranoid about keeping his throne, murdering his brother-inlaw, wife, and sons out of jealousy. Even Caesar Augustus said, “It is better to be
Herod's dog than one of his children.” It is not surprising that he ordered a
generation of boys to be slaughtered, just to secure his throne from "The King
of the Jews.”

“KINGS IN THIS SHOULD IMITATE GOD, THEIR MERCY SHOULD BE
ABOVE THEIR WORKS.” ―WILLIAM PENN
DAY 5
At that time John the Baptist came to the desert of Judea and started
preaching. “Turn away from your sins,” he said, “because the Kingdom of
heaven is near!” John was the man the prophet Isaiah was talking about
when he said, “Someone is shouting in the desert, ‘Prepare a road for the
Lord; make a straight path for him to travel!’”
John's clothes were made of camel's hair; he wore a leather belt around
his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. People came to him from
Jerusalem, from the whole province of Judea, and from all over the country
near the Jordan River. They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the
Jordan.
When John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him to be
baptized, he said to them, “You snakes—who told you that you could escape
from the punishment God is about to send? Do those things that will show
that you have turned from your sins. And don't think you can escape
punishment by saying that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can
take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham! The ax is ready to cut
down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be
cut down and thrown in the fire.”

NOTE