<TITLE>24. Par 191-201</TITLE>L-191 She went up the hills of Judaea, to tell Elisabeth. And when she met Elisabeth, she told her that she "was going to be a mother." And she couldn't understand it, "knowing no man." But she said, "The Holy Spirit overshadowed me, and said that this Holy thing that'll be borned of me will be called the 'Son of God,' and I'll call His name 'Jesus.'" And the first time that the name Jesus was ever spoke in a human lip, a little dead baby, in its mother's womb, leaped for joy and shouted; and jumped in the womb of a mother, and it never had received life yet.

L-192 The Name of Jesus Christ spoke life into a dead baby. What ought It to do in a church that claims to be borned again?

L-193   And we set as sour as the bumps on a pickle, and let such things go on. And afraid to raise and testify your conviction, and condemn all this nonsense, make Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's Christmas time, get out these Santa Clauses and stuff, away with that nonsense of commercializing. Wherever you heard about Santa Claus in the Bible? It's a Roman mythology, there's nothing to it at all, there is no such a thing. Don't teach your children such nonsense as that. When one day you'll have to tell him that it was all a blind story, then you've lied to your child. And it'll hurt your testimony about Jesus Christ, he'll say, "Maybe It's the same thing." Put Jesus Christ the Great Shepherd-prophet back into the Christmas where It belongs.

L-194   Notice, listen to this prophet, John, as he stands there. We all know that he was a great shepherd-prophet. Now, he had a message, the Angel knowed that he was going to introduce Jesus.

L-195 Now, he couldn't go to some seminary. They'd say, "Now, you know that Doctor So-and-so is just the man to take the place now. You're to introduce him. And you know that just..." See, he couldn't get mixed up with man.

L-196 At the age of nine years old, we're told, he went into the wilderness to prepare before God. That's where the shepherds come from. Notice his message wasn't like a theologian, with some great, big swelling words of some degree. He said, "Oh, you generation of snakes." Telling religious man, "You bunch of snakes." That's what he had seen in the wilderness, he saw the snake. Lowest thing he could find was a snake, and he called them priests and clergymen and theologians of that day, "A bunch of snakes!" Said, "Who's warned you from the wrath to come? Don't begin to say, 'We belong to this, and we belong to that,' for I say unto you that God's able of these stones to rise children to Abraham." Stones, what he had seen in the wilderness. "Also, the ax is laid to the root of the tree." That's what he had been seeing: snakes, trees, wilderness. And, see, that was his message. He didn't know the great swelling words of some great doctor of divinity (could explain It all away), he just preached exactly the line of nature.

L-197   That's what we're showing here: the shepherd's staff, the shepherd, the sheep, the line of nature.

L-198 What did he do? He had a great thing to do, he was the one that would know the Messiah. He said, "I say, 'He's standing here among you now. And you don't know Him, because your theology has got you so tied up, you don't know where you're at.'"

L-199 One day Jesus come walking out, he said, "Behold, there comes the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." The Lamb! Hallelujah! The real Atonement! There comes what every sheep from the Garden of Eden down has shadowed, an ordinary man walking down to the river.

L-200   They said, "John, how did you know It? I didn't see one thing different."

L-201 "But I bear record, I saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and a Voice saying, 'This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am pleased to dwell in.'"


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