<TITLE>04. Par 18-25</TITLE>L-18   You see, always light shines its best in the darkness. The forked lightning in the black cloudy skies at night, shows there can be light in darkness. And when the light is shining, you don't see... If the sun's shining, you don't need the lights too much. But darker, the smaller the light, greater it will shine in the darkness. Darker, the better, shows itself better. And that's more the less that... We Christians ought to be testifying to the glory of God giving His Son to us. This Christmas ought to be an outstanding thing. We Christians ought... No matter how much it looks, it'll make it shine that much better. The whole world's got tinsel. We've got Christ, and that's what we ought to be letting shine in this dark hour that we're now living in.

L-19   We think of how God does things in unusual ways, because He is unusual Himself. God is unusual. He's--He's the Supernatural, the Infinite, unto we finite. So, anything He does is--is so unusual. And God is so--so great, till He takes the unidentified things of the earth to identify Himself by it.

L-20 We notice here in my subject, of Why Little Bethlehem, that smallest of all of Judaea, the princes of the other cities of Judaea, why did God choose to send His Son to that place? That's what we want to talk on. God taking the things of the world, I believe the Scripture says, "By the foolishness of preaching, it pleased God to take the unidentified things." What we make great, God calls foolish. What we put so much glory to, God says it's--it's--it's no good. And what we think is no good, God glorifies it.

L-21   Was thinking of just before the birth of our Lord, when all the prophets, and so forth, had spoke of the forerunner coming, "how every mountain would be brought low and the low places brought high, and the mountains would skip like little rams, and the leaves would clap their hands." And it was a--a minister, a prophet by the name of John, came forth out of the wilderness, not from even a theological school, whiskers all over his face, and a piece of sheepskin, not in a clergy clothes, come out and announce, "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" And the people could hardly understand such an outfit as that coming, with no identification of any--any system, anything that he belonged to, any fellowship card, or any denominational that he was backing him up. The--the Message was too great, he couldn't take man, God schooled him out in the wilderness. His Message was not on some kind of a--a theological terms. He spoke of serpents and axes and trees, and that's what he was used to, nature, watching how it worked. And that was the--the way he approached. Not as a clergyman, but as--as a man of nature.

L-22 And the people could hardly understand him. Didn't even have a pulpit, and probably wasn't welcome in any, but he preached on the banks of the Jordan, probably standing in mud up half to his knees. But the people come out to hear it, those who were honest in heart. They wanted to hear because it was something different, it had a ring of Truth to it.

L-23 Today we ought to be at this, at the approaching of the birth of Christ, our Message, it ought to have a ring of Truth to it that would make people thirst to find Him.

L-24   God took that simple man, without education, not one day in school, and yet said he was the greatest among all the prophets that ever lived, because God identifies Himself in unidentified things.

L-25 When Jesus chose His disciples, it was. There were many men better qualified for the job than those disciples, they were clergymen, He never called one. There were clergymen in them days, great men, priests, men of education, renowned men, but He never called them. He took fishermen and tax collectors, and so forth, to--to send His Message out. He always does that.


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