<TITLE>24. Par 224-232</TITLE>L-224 After His death, burial, and resurrection, Saint Paul met Him on the road down to Damascus; He was back to that Pillar of Fire. Almost two thousand years has passed since then, and here He is, not amongst the denominations, not amongst the high-polished scholars of the day, but a bunch of poor and humble. A paradox--a paradox. To those who love Him, believe Him, thousands around the world who believed Him, it's to fulfill His promise of both New and Old Testament. That's what it is. But it's a paradox.
It was a paradox when God promised to give the Kingdom to a little flock, and instead of a great organized church. "Fear not little flock; it's your Father's good will to give you the Kingdom." It will... It's a paradox. It's a paradox.

L-227 It'll be a real paradox, one of these days, when Jesus comes; and the dead in Christ shall rise, this mortal takes on immortality, and the rapture of the Church comes.
In this Christmas times when people are shopping, and dancing, and drinking, and celebrating something that they know nothing about, like they was celebrating Washington or Lincoln's birthday, and not worshipping the... They still got God in a manger, when God's not in a manger. He's raised from the dead, and alive forevermore, living among us, proving Himself, as the same God that the Nicene fathers carried, and down through the ages has come since the day of Pentecost. The same God that met Paul on the road to Damascus; he was a missionary to the Gentile and a messenger from God to the Gentiles. The Gentile's Message started by a visitation of the Pillar of Fire, and it ends the same way.

L-230 The Gentile kingdom started off, the kingdom of the world (That's the world.) started off with a rebuke from a heavenly language in the days of king Nebuchadnezzar; ends up the same thing, as the Holy Ghost poured out upon the Gentile church at the last days to rebuke the Gentile nations again with a handwriting on the wall, the handwriting on the wall, that God has prepared His Church, He's prepared His people, He's prepared His place, and they're waiting for Him to come.
And that rapture. "When the trumpet of God shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise, we which are alive and remain shall not hinder them that's asleep. For the trumpet of God shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise; and we shall be caught up together with them, to meet the Lord in the air." A paradox, one of these mornings, when the graves open and the dead walks out; when the ones who are living will be changed in a moment of a twinkling of an eye, and go up in the air to meet Him.

L-232 The whole thing is a paradox, God moving amongst His people. Do you believe that? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] Let us bow our heads for a word of prayer.
God, now for over an hour, and about an hour and ten minutes, we have stood here speaking of past and present events, of how the Holy Spirit dividing them, Lord, as the Word of God has so graciously did, showing that the very God of heaven, Who lived in the old days in the same form and the same way, lives today. The same wonders and the same power that was upon the prophets of old, that was upon the Church at Pentecost, was upon Hannah, and upon Agabus the prophets of the New Testament in that day, who even corrected Saint Paul... And Saint Paul got in trouble by not listening to Agabus, 'cause Agabus... Though he was an apostle, Paul was, but Agabus had the Word of the Lord, and he warned him not to go up there. But Paul was determined to go, and then he got in trouble. And, Father, always we get in trouble if we disobey the Word of God.
We see that the very God that was with those brethren there, is the same God today. We see Him in every manifestation. And it is a paradox, Lord. The world looks, and shakes their head, and says there's nothing to it. The believer accepts It and embraces It, and knows that It's the living God.


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