<TITLE>18. Par 75-78</TITLE>L-75 Now, here they come. Then we see the shepherds come out and sing on the hills of Judaea. 'Cause they was always singing at the birth of a king. Eight days later, we find Jesus going to the temple in His mother's arms, mother packing Him.
There was an old man up there, an old sage, or we'd call him a preacher, long beard, and hair. And he was--had a fine reputation among the people. He was a renowned man. And he had a fine reputation.
And one day when he was out, the Holy Ghost told him, said, "Simeon, you're not going to die until you see the Lord's Christ." And he believed it. And he was expecting it. He went around... He didn't care what the rest of the churches said; he didn't care what all--his prestige. He said, "I'm believe... I ain't going to die till I see the Lord's Christ."
I can hear some of them saying, "You know the old fellow is kind of getting old just a little bit, you know, something wrong with him up there." They usually say that, you know. "There's something wrong up here with them people." See?

L-76 Well, what was the matter? He was expecting God to keep His Word. Had a good reason, didn't he? "Well, how you know you're going to see it? David looked for it, even Adam, all the way back has looked for it. Four thousand years has passed and there has been no sign of it yet."
"I don't care what's passed; the Holy Ghost told me I was going to see it and I believe it." That settles it. That's a good reason, isn't it?
"You mean you're here eighty years old and one foot in the grave?"
"I don't care how old I am, but I'm going to see the Christ before I die, 'cause the Holy Ghost said so. I'm going right around expecting it, thanking God for His promise, because I'm going to see Him." Oh, my. There you are. He was expecting to see the Christ.

L-77 All right, now it comes time to give a little drama here. Let's say there's a prayer room out at the temple. Say it's Monday morning. And oh, there's about two million, something Jews in Palestine then. Probably many hundred children was borned overnight.
And every day there would be a line of women, lined up there for circumcision of the male child, offering turtledoves or lambs. If it was a peasant, they had turtledoves, a lamb, the rich person for the purification of the mother, and circumcision of the child and so forth, you know, the Jewish laws.
Let's say this was Monday morning. All right, I see the temple is busy, people coming and going, around and around. It's all going around. After while, I see a long line of people, women standing, all up and down that line.

L-78 And I see some of the women there with little babies with their little pink knitted needlework gowns on them and little shawls and little blue shawls, and each one leading a little lamb: rich women, oh, how pretty.
Way down the line, let's look. I see a little lady standing down there with her head bowed, just a little girl with a baby in her arms. Oh, my. Poor? Two turtledoves. Clothes? Wrapped in swaddling's cloth. That's what's taken off the yoke of an ox, you know, when he's plowing, keep him from rubbing his shoulders. There was nothing in the manger. So He just didn't have no clothes. You talk about poor. There's not a family in Phoenix that poor. Charity would do more for you than that.
But He was the very God of Creation, standing here, born in a manger. Come by the world, way of a manger and went out the way of capital punishment. "Came to His own, His own received... In the world and the world was made by Him, the world knew Him not." And here He was, laying there in His mother's arms, wrapped in swaddling's cloth.


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