<TITLE>02. Par 11-20</TITLE>L-11 And we've been noticed at the perils they had to go through in order to get there. Now, they didn't have a great, fine plush ambulance to take Mary up there. And they didn't have it as today, that we could've had some kind of an excuse. It was the king's order. No excuses are made. It must be fulfilled. "The king said so." No matter her conditions, or what, they must return to their homeland. No comfort for the little expecting mother, and no way of travel, only by foot, or on the back of a little donkey.
And we're told that Joseph taken Mary, this expected mother at any time, and setting her on the back of a little donkey. And if anyone ever road a donkey, knows what a rough ride that is. The little fellow, along a narrow trail that wind up over the mountains, coming to Bethlehem, from lower Judaea, very rough and rugged road. What if the little donkey would not have been sure-footed and would've fell with this little expecting mother?

L-13 Or, in the days when there was so much travel coming into their homelands, the whole country was working, alive with pilgrims and travelers, back to the homeland, a very good set-up for robbers in those days. When they seen the little caravans of small peoples, the riders, robbers could've rode right in and slew them, and took their goods, and went off. What a thing it was to this young married couple, that they had to face, and how it would've been.
Also what if some of the wild beasts, which there was lions and many destroying, wild animals that roamed in the deserts that they had to cross. What if a wild beast would've took towards the little party, what could Joseph have done with a stick in his hand, and a wife that could hardly move? They had that to face.

L-15 But it gives us consolation to know this: that we do not hold our destiny. God holds our destiny. And He has ordained it to be so, and there's nothing will ever interrupt the program of God. We are bound to arrive.

L-16 And there was to be no fear. And yet maybe Mary and Joseph, themselves just common people, not educated, and they didn't have the way of knowing these things that were taking place right at that time, was fulfilling the Scriptures.
And it's the same today. That things are taking place right in this day that we live in, and many of us know nothing about it, how God is moving.
I was just asked by one of the recording ladies in the room here, when was I going to speak on that subject of the handwriting and the sputnik in the air. "Would it be next Sunday?"
I said, "I don't know."
But, oh, to see in this dark enveloping of time, God's great hand moves steadily on. Nothing shall stop It.

L-20 And we can see as it was today, as the little donkey and the two travelers finally arrive, as they come by night, over the deserts, it was so hot. And then let's say they are setting just on the little mountain to the east of Bethlehem.
Bethlehem sets in a valley, and there's a little mountain. And the road that comes into Bethlehem, curves east of Bethlehem, and goes down into the city. Near the corner, where you make the last curve to start down the hill, there's a great pile of jagged rocks lays there. And it's been thought by historians that perhaps Mary and Joseph stopped there for a little breath before they went down into the city that night.


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