Christians, you see, are not to be anxious or worried about anything. We worry, that's true, but we do not need to. Moreover, we should not worry. For worry can effectively stifle the Christian life and ruin one's witness.

At this point, the prophecy of a ruler given to the Wise Men becomes quite personal. For the issue is not merely whether the one born in this small Judean town so long ago really was a great ruler, but whether He is your ruler. The question is, Are you his subject? Have you bowed your knee to him? 

The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem shows us many things about God, but chief among them is God's eternal, predestinating power. God's choice was Bethlehem, and in Bethlehem Jesus was born. 

When the Wise Men came to Jerusalem in those early months following the birth of Jesus Christ, they asked to see the new king. Those who heard the Magi's questions were disturbed—particularly King Herod. It was because Judea already had a king, and Herod was that king. Herod was a crafty old politician. He did not know who this king was, but that did not mean that no king existed. He set about to find where the "pretender" was so he might kill him. Who would know about his birth place? If anybody would know, it would be the chief priests and teachers of the law. So Herod called them together and asked where the child was to be born.

The final stanza of Psalm 98 calls on the entire creation to praise God. In the first stanza the appeal was to Israel. In the second stanza the Gentiles were called to join in. In this last stanza the psalmist calls on what we would call the cosmos. And the reason is that God is coming to “judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity” (v. 9). In other words, the psalm ends by looking ahead to that future day when the ills of this suffering world will be set right. We know this as the day of the return of Jesus Christ.