In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of keeping our focus on God and His teachings. He warns against being driven by a desire for wealth and worldly success, as this can lead us away from Jesus. The preacher also addresses the dangers of engaging in disputes and arguments over words, which can result in division and strife among believers. He urges the congregation to stay focused on the "star," symbolizing Jesus, and not be distracted by the glitter of the world or other attractions. The sermon highlights the need to flee from anything that tempts us and leads us away from God, using the example of Joseph fleeing from temptation in the Bible.

Let's read from Matthew 2 where we had read from last week, last Sunday. Now, verse 3, but I'm going to just jump around to a few verses. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. Verse 9. When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them. Till it came and stood over where the young child was. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, 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. 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. We'll read thus far. Now as we read, this text, I have the question, the wise men, when they had seen the star, they rejoiced. I ask, when did they actually lose the star? Or when did they lose focus and shift their sight off the star? Because they no longer saw it, but when they got out of there again, then they saw the star again and they were exceedingly glad. At which particular moment or place did they remove their focus from the star? You contemplate. They should never remove their focus from the star. Why did they? For what reason? Why did they remove their eyes from the star? It could have been that the journey had been very unfamiliar, foreign, tough, but as they entered a major city like Jerusalem, it seemed all plain and sensible that this was the road in. I don't know why they took their eyes from the star. But there must be a reason. Maybe they thought it's not necessary anymore. Now we know the way. I don't know the reason. Maybe they have to tell me when we are up there. I'd like to ask them, why did you take your eyes from the Lord? Why do you sometimes take your eyes from the Lord? What do you hear? What do you see? What have you been told? What do you hear? What do you see? It was a fatal error to remove their focus from the star, thinking now they know the way. It resulted in a disaster, much bloodshed, many tears, Rachel's weeping because of their removing their eyes from the star. Get nearer to the star and not further away. The star should be clearer to us instead of fading away. I don't know why they took their eyes from the Lord. Maybe they thought it's not necessary anymore. It is of great danger for you to remove your eyes from the star. It might be because of the glitter of the world. It might be because of the other attractions, something that takes your focus. Maybe you think, well, you know enough. Whatever it is, there is a woe upon you if you remove your focus from the star. You might think it's just a small mistake to remove your focus from the star, but it might result in much damage to other people. Heed God, listen to Him always. If you are not obedient to Him, it will result in evil and in weeping. The Lord might have called you to preach the gospel. But you deliberately ignored His command and you continued with your own career doing your thing. Well, their blood will be called to account. They will go to hell, but you will join them there too. It says, Herod was very troubled when he heard that a king had been born. Now this king, this Christ child, the Lord, the Savior, the Messiah, that anybody should be troubled by his birth. No wonder Herod should go to hell for this attitude. Why was he troubled? Now, not only Herod was troubled, maybe God comes and speaks to you, or speaks to His people, and you don't want it, you resist it, you turn your back on it and spurn His speaking. For your own sake and for the sake of many people whose blood God will demand from you, you've killed them because you didn't obey. At all prices, be open to God and rejoice in His message. It was His Savior that came. It was the Christ. It was His Savior, Herod's Savior who was born. It was the Christ, the one who could save him. But instead of welcoming the news, he was troubled by it. No wonder a person like that will be eaten by the worms. Not just worms, but the eternal worm where the fire is not quenched. If God comes to you, and He comes to you, to bless you, to speak to you, and you spurn Him, and you're troubled by it, well, your place is where the worm dieth not, and the flame is never quenched. That God should work and bring heaven to you, and does such a mighty work on your behalf, and yet you don't rejoice in it? Let's pass now to another point. Then, when the wise men had been with the Christ Child, God spoke to them and warned them in a dream, Don't go back via Jerusalem as had been arranged. Take another way, for this Herod is no friend of the Messiah. No, he is an enemy. He is a hypocrite. He seeks to kill the Christ Child. Mary and Joseph were extremely blessed in many ways. The wise men coming from the east, the shepherds who had come, the angels who had come, it was such great joy to them. But then the angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph and said, Now, right now, at night, you get up, take the child and the mother, and you flee to Egypt. For Herod seeks his life. Joseph was an astonishing man. He had no doubt. He wasn't irritated, saying, I'm being disturbed in my sleep. He got up right there and then, woke up Mary and said, we have to leave immediately, take the child, we are fleeing to Egypt. Consider the consequences, had they not obeyed. If you wouldn't have obeyed, you and I wouldn't have a Christ and a Savior today. The billions of people would go to hell. That you are saved was because of his obedience. You've got no idea what will happen on earth if you are disobedient. Perhaps many tribes and nations will weep and weep because of a person like Joseph. Like you, who does not obey God. Get up, flee. For the enemy seeks to kill the child. There are many people in this world who have received Christ, accepted Him, and they follow Jesus. But today you find that they have now backslidden away from Christ. Why? That they accepted Christ as their Savior. But today, they've turned away from Him. The first love is no longer in their lives. Why? It's because their Jesus has died. Herod has come, sin has come to you, and you have not fled. The Bible speaks about many things which we have to flee from. In 1 Timothy 6 it says, You, O man of God, flee these things. There is often reference to that type of statement, like for instance, flee the lusts of youth. Some people they had received the Lord, but today they are absolutely cold dead because they did not flee the lusts of youth. It says that everything of the world, the spirit of the world, we must flee from it. There are many things from which you must flee, and if you don't flee, your Jesus will be killed afterwards. You're just a Christian in name. Christ, the Living One, isn't leading and guiding you, isn't growing within you. If it says, flee lust, it doesn't just say in your thought life. When it speaks here about flee from Herod, it meant it literally, getting out of sight, physically removing yourself from it. Now, many years ago, that same Reverend Malifi told us this story. He was a man to whom the Lord revealed His power. He was well known in that generation together with Reverend Nicholas Bengal. You know, a boy who is blessed by God, you'll find that he has a lot of girls following him, like flies following dirt. He said, there are girls, there are women who seek to be as close as possible to the opposite sex. Instead of feeling comfortable with their own sex, no, they want to be around men, as close as possible, not fleeing. And then he said, what then happened was that some would share so-called things of God in the Bible, boy and girl. He said, share with your own sex. Why do you have to seek the opposite sex to share it with? You even get the situation where some girls will seek out a man to share their sex with, and he'll say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Reverend Malithi said it went to such a point that some of these girls would ask for his address or would give them, give him their addresses. He said though, he noticed that there was a girl who totally ignored getting close to the opposite sex and what the others were up to and he said to himself I'd like to get married to a girl like that. Flee the lusts of the flesh and not just in your thought life, even physically removing yourself out of a situation. A certain white man told me, you know I've accepted the Lord, I've made all the decisions about becoming a Christian, but having been a drunkard in the past, but I just can't get out of this alcoholism. I can't get through a week without getting drunk. I asked him, well explain how this happens. So he said, you know whenever I go to a bar, unfailingly I come out drunk. I said what, you still go to bars? I said to him, no wonder you're swimming in booze, it's because you acquaint yourself with those places, you're so close to it, you need to flee from that evil. Flee. Some people say I just can't get rid of, I can't flee from these, from sexual temptation, it's because they are in it all the time and they are right in the situation, whether it's through their videos or the books or the internet or whatever it is, flee, destroy, rather get rid of that, destroy that internet, the thing that trips you up is the thing that you need to flee from. And I'd like to say, if you don't flee from that, you are as guilty as what Joseph would have been, if he would have not fled and Herod would have succeeded in killing the child, because the devil succeeds to kill the child in you, your sin is the same. The variety is, you need to flee the thing that trips you up. I saw recently two girls and I immediately recognised their intimacy showed that they were lesbians, you get high with that. homosexuals, men who are just far too intimate with each other. If there is any relationship that is inappropriate, that's the thing that you need to flee from. To Timothy, it was written about many things that a man of God needs to flee from. In chapter 5, it says, in verse 19, it says, don't accept a charge against an elder unless there are two or three witnesses. You'll find a person easily gossiping, coming and slandering about somebody. So firstly it says, regarding an elder, an older man, an elder in the church, if somebody comes, do not listen to such a charge or accusation. Unless it is absolutely ascertained by two or three witnesses. You see, gossip is such a curse in the church. It goes around like wildfire. It is a terrible thing. It destroys. It's from downright out of hell. For the Bible says, if a person sins, go to that person and help him and talk to him. And if he doesn't listen, you rather take somebody who has wise counsel and go and talk to that person. Never speak about another person in their absence, because you are too of Satan. You are a messenger of the devil. So that is why it says here, if somebody comes with a charge against an elder, don't even listen to him unless he comes with sure proof of another two or three witnesses. And if he talks about somebody else, be instantly alert when somebody comes and uses the name of somebody else. Be on your guard. Another approach can be, all right, hold on, let's go together and you tell me what you've just told me in the presence of the person about whom you've spoken. Flee slander. Flee slander. Flee slander. Flee slander. Flee slander. So you need to flee the sin of gossip. If you can't sum up the courage to go and speak to somebody about a problem, you can come to me, I'll go with you. But never speak behind somebody's back. You see, otherwise you start getting clicks within a church grouping. You find instead of a holy unity, the fellowship of the saints, you get a party spirit where they sort of branch off and this group stays there and that group has meals together, but they do not fellowship together. That is Satanic and such people. Such people we do not need here. Rather, leave here if you cannot contain your tongue. For you will be accursed if you continue with that gossip amongst the children of God. Many other things as well. We don't have time to go through the list of other things mentioned as well. It is mentioned also regarding this example of money, the love of money. There was a meeting, a sort of minister's fraternity where they were going to arrange a massive big mass meeting, but the whole arrangement just fell into tatters. And when one went into it, it was discovered that it was simply the love of money. These ministers were asking how much money they were going to get out of the deal of this mass meeting, this crusade, and that was what destroyed the whole arrangement. We once arranged services. Preachers came, and they said, well, if our choirs are going to get out of this deal, come to sing at this meeting, then we demand so many thousand for their performance. If we lead the singing, the chorus singing, then we demand this amount. Eventually, I don't know how many tens of thousands they were demanding. That is such a curse in Africa, the love of money, which just destroys the work of God because the love of money is just so intertwined with church work that it destroys it. Flee these things lest they wound you. Money can become bigger to you than God. You might say, I want to study because I want to earn megabucks. I want to become really rich. Well, if that's your attitude, your Jesus is dead already. Herod has destroyed him. Chapter 6 verse 1, let as many bond servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud knowing nothing. But is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of truth. Who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. And then it concludes by saying there, from such withdraw yourself. Do you see why Jesus is stifled, Jesus is killed, why Herod is given free reign to destroy the life within you? Because you do not flee these things. Cling to these truths. Flee from that which is wrong. Do some introspection. Ask and say Lord is your life really alive within me? And if you do not flee from this, you will be killed. And if you do not flee from this, you will be killed. So this text says man of God flee these things so no wonder we as we walk on our heavenly journey we walk on white bones of those who have died along the way because they have not fled from the things that the Bible commands them to flee from. Jesus and Herod cannot be comrades together in your heart and the one will destroy the other. It is no wonder that you find that there's a deadness that's creeping inside you and you are suffocating it is because you are not heeding the words of fleeing these things. Let's stand to our feet. I ask you Lord send your Holy Spirit to lead us into all the truth to correct and convict us as to whether Jesus is alive in our hearts or has been destroyed by Herod. Our Holy Spirit move in our midst touch each and every one that each one will be forced to face the truth that if I do not flee the things that you convict them of that the child the Christ child will be destroyed in them. I ask you Lord that as we leave the service now that you would work in every heart revealing whether Jesus is alive in our hearts or not. Amen.