We turn today with all Christians to the celebration of
Christmas, and it is good that all of Christendom has set aside such a day, to
celebrate an event of such tremendous importance to all mankind. This has
become a festive day throughout all Christendom, when the children of God lift
up their voices and hearts in joy, because God kept His covenant with us,
because He visited us and dwelt among us a man among men, the fullness of God
thus dwelling bodily. Here is the miracle and the mystery of the ages.
If there ever was a day when a birthday became important,
if there was ever a single event in all time and history, fulfilled, in all
the covenant purposes of God that carried with it a mighty and mystical
strangeness, it was the day when God was born in earth in the body of a man.
To talk about the day that God was born seems a strange to
phrase a great truth, because we know of Him that as the Apostle Paul said in
the Book of Colossians, that He was before all things, and by him were all
things created. But the Disciple John proclaimed the real magnitude of His
person when he said in the Gospel of John, "All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made."
It is difficult conceive that He who created all things was
Himself born on earth. The one who created all form in the vastness of the
universe, who controlled the direction of all matter in all of the sidereal
systems and caused all things to fall into proper pattern, like the clockwork
of the finest artisan, and keeps all things in balance as in the palm of His
hand, by the power of His will, this One who was Almighty God was born as a
child in a body of flesh. To think that God, who was before all things and by
whom all things have come into existence, emerged as a living and embodied
person and was born out of the household of His own creation, is one of the
great miracles of transition in all time and history.
We should recognize that there is a direct relationship
between that miracle and each one of us, a relationship that exists between us
and our Father, and between the Eternal God and that babe which was born
nearly two thousand years ago in the town of Bethlehem. We should also
recognize that the relationship of our Heavenly Father, to us, is entirely
different and greater than His relationship to any other people on the face of
the earth.
It is true, today, that the impact of this cry, Merry
Christmas, reaches from one end of the earth to the other. And the reason why,
today, whether it be in the streets of Tokyo or in the land of Egypt, whether
it be in the streets of India or an Arab encampment, when you hear the words,
"Merry Christmas" it is because there have been sons and daughters of your
race that have gone around the world. The impact of that message was so great,
of the Lord God of Israel who was the God of your race, and it became so much
a part of you, that you have left the very spirit of it everywhere you have
gone.
Do not let the exactness of the date become the important
thing, today, but rejoice in your hearts that there is an hour of festivity
when our children can enjoy merrily the receiving of gifts, because, behind it
there is something that is never removed: this is the birthday of Christ that
men are celebrating, even if it is not with exactness on the day He was born.
This is the important thing that God became man and dwelt among us.
I was rather pleased to see the headlines on the front
pages of our newspaper, this morning, proclaiming the news story of the birth
of Christ, in the Examiner and all Hearst newspapers across the nation. We
have moved into an hour when the front pages of newspapers herald the fact
that Christ was born and declared in no uncertain words that God visited us.
That, my friends, is a symbol of a great people, who now by universal
acceptance recognize that this was the birth of God. We may have had our hours
of "higher criticism," we may have, in some of the better pulpits of the
nation inside the material church, those who do not understand the mystery of
this experience and should not be behind the sacred desk; but it�s pulsing
truth has been so great, has reached so far, that none can silence it, and
now, even the newspapers cry out what the Church should have proclaimed at all
times, everywhere. And especially in the congregations of the Christian faith,
there should never have been any doubt that this was so.
The miracles of this hour are the miracles that happen
every year in the hearts of our people that surge through us every time we
approach this season of the year. There is a stimulus in our thinking, and
only God could have ordained such an impact of festival and holiday spirit as
that which abounds in our celebration of this great event. It is something
that surges through us and stays with us throughout the year, but has its
greatest impetus on this particular day. It has stirred consciousness to
think, for several days before and after, that this is the hour we celebrate
the birth of God that God dwelt among us. And that we are a special people
unto Him also becomes clear. For as we survey the peoples from one end of the
earth to the other, we find them serving their many concepts of deity, we find
them serving doctrines of demons and idols and superstitions and darkness. But
wherever people are saying, "Merry Christmas," they are celebrating, today,
the birth of God who is the God above all, who visited mankind and, when He
did, He identified the people who receive Him as being a special people unto
Himself.
I think there is something very significant about the
prophecies of Isaiah in which God, speaking to Isaiah, spoke also to us
throughout all ages and gave us the promise and explanation of the route and
mystery of how this event would take place. When He said, "a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and thou shalt call His name Immanuel," what a
strange mystery of spiritual force would embody the life force of birth within
one who knew virginity; and yet this was the mystery of the covering force of
God�s spirit, to produce this miracle.
"Unto us a child is born" is the way Isaiah proclaimed it.
No heralding cry could be more important to any people than this message. Unto
us is this whole event dedicated by covenant and promise. So Isaiah said,
"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be
upon His shoulder." What government? The government of the kingdoms and the
nations of this world! The government of all the divine plan of the ages for
the earth! "The government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Might El, The everlasting Father, and The
Prince of Peace." Such title never had been bestowed upon man before.
What man in all time and history could have received such
honor? What man in all time and history had been born of woman, of whom they
could say, this is the Mighty El, the everlasting Father? But this is the
event, which we celebrate today; this is the mystery of the ages.
The entire universe was gathering for this event. The whole
area around Palestine was charged in a supernatural way on the night of this
promised deliverance of the people of earth. Strange as it might seem, there
had been plans laid, that reached back millenniums and millenniums ago. We
mentioned, as we talked to you about that Star of Wonder, how God had set the
stage for these events in this earth, a spot called Uranta by the ancients and
known as the spot wherein God was going to focus all the panorama of the
history of the universe, for one of its greatest acts. This was the stage
being set, of God, as Shakespeare with all His marvelous command of words
could never have described it. For this was the plan of God: that here, the
mightiest fulfillment of all prophecies would occur, when God embodied would
appear.
In the millions and millions and millions of eons of light
years before, there had been a continually creating sidereal expanse, as one
sidereal system after another was put in place. Constellation after
constellation grew and developed; and had you been out on the edges of the
farthest perimeter of the sidereal system, you would have found even beyond
that, ages extending into the light years beyond, of a continued panorama of
more and more and more universe. For our Father always was, He had no
beginning and therefore has no end. So there is no edge and no end to His
creations.
When we contemplate the untold numbers of galaxies, which
God has created, we must realize that they were all put into their proper
position with a design, by the mind of God, for a spot where He was going to
put this grain of sand in the vastness of His universe that we call earth. For
it could only be so. There is no other place in all God�s universe where there
could be observance of the sidereal systems that would make the zodiacal
picture and the pattern in the heavens that we see here. And there is not a
race on the face of the earth, nor are there a people or a nation where the
symbols and the signs have not been indicated in almost universal picture
language. We understand what is meant in the Psalms where it says, "The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day
unto day they uttereth speech and night unto night they showeth knowledge."
For the patriarchs had already been given the knowledge that enabled them to
read the signs in the heavens.
But I want you to think of the endless eons of existence
beyond the ability of your mind to fathom by comparisons, for your earthly
existence has not given you the capacity to measure by comparisons such
antiquity. It was all in a plan that had long ago been put into its proper
order, for only from earth could the stars look as they look and can be read
as they are read only from this point. From anyplace else the picture angles
would have been different; from anyplace else the measure would have been
different. And the measure was the announcement of an event of tremendous
importance. The importance of it was that the people whom God had planted in
the earth to build His Kingdom, the children who were the seed of His own
life, who were a holy seed, which He had planted for the establishment of His
Kingdom, were going to be visited by His own embodiment.
He knew what His children would do when they were placed
here on earth. You see, God has never been disappointed. God has never been
taken by surprise. All the errors and mistakes, the original transgression,
the fall of our Adamic race, had been known to Him from before the foundation
of the world. When we say God promised and covenanted that He was going to
redeem us from before the foundation of the world, before Adam was even placed
on the earth, long before the seed of which your race was begotten had ever
been planted here, God knew exactly how you would perform.
God said, "To show you that I am not only identified with
you and I am going to carry out My purpose and My program for you, I have
predestinated each one of you, which I have planted in the earth, to
eventually conform to My own image. I have predestined that each one of you
shall carry forward the mighty Messianic purpose with which I have planted
you, as the mighty body of My own being, in the earth, for you are life of My
life, breath of My breath, flesh of My flesh and bone of My bone.
"Therefore, to accomplish this in all its magnitude," God
said, "I also shall be born out of a vessel of the same flesh as your bodies
are composed of. I shall come out of the very race of which you are a part,
and be as one of you. I shall be a living example that God and the sons and
daughters of God are one family, and that you are My kinsmen. With all your
error, with all your transgression, I am not going to say, I am ashamed of
you, because you are My family. But I am going to redeem you with the only
kind of redemption that I alone as God can do. So I have predestinated each
one of you to conform to My own image, and there shall arise a Deliverer in
Zion, and He shall take away all the transgression of His people."
This is the covenant. These are the things that Paul talked
about; these are the promises that were made to us, before the foundation of
this sidereal system and this cosmic order. So it was that all the events of
time and history moved toward this goal.
Men could be subconsciously aware of spiritual presence,
but not consciously aware of the intricacies of the plan. But the plan went
on, with every detail of its energy and all the elements within it, measuring
the movement of all the stars: the breaking of a nova, the crossing of the sky
of a headless comet from the head of Aquila to the head of Virgo, which Enoch
had been told about in the heavens. Men looked at these things with amazement
while wise men and servants of your race searched the sky for the promised
sign of that great event, the birth of God.
No wonder the air was charged that night in Palestine when
the angels came to herald His coming and spoke to the shepherds upon the
hills. To some people, Palestine was but a province in the empire of Rome. To
some, Palestine was just a part of the empire across which Augustus Caesar�s
marching legions had carried the strength of Rome, from Egypt to the fiords of
Norway.
Surely the Roman legions were numerous, for they were the
power and the authority of the day. Certainly Herod, a Jewish king from
Pergamos, was ruling on the seat of authority in the province of Palestine
and, as such, was known as King of the Jews. Truly the people of Judah and
Benjamin in the land of Palestine were under bondage and had no political
freedom, and they had no religious freedom either. In fact, they had had very
little religious freedom during the preceding six hundred years, since the
days when their ancestors had been taken into the Babylonian captivity. Surely
they looked for a Deliverer who would come, a Messiah King, a Mighty God, to
set them free and they hoped for and anticipated the birth of such a one.
On this night above all nights the air was charged. But I
tell you the air had been charged around Palestine for some time before this.
For fifteen months unusual events had been transpiring. The Gospel of Luke
tells us about when an angel appeared unto Zacharias, a priest in the temples
of God, and said to Zacharias, "Your wife Elisabeth, who is also a daughter of
Aaron, is to have a child and there is going to be something miraculous about
it."
And Zachariah said, "It would surely have to be miraculous,
for my wife is full of years and she is barren, and how could she have a child
like that? How can I believe that such a thing could be?"
Then the angel said, "Because ye doubt what God can do,
thou shalt not speak again until this event has taken place. But she will have
a child, and thou shalt call his name John. He will prepare the way in
righteousness before the Messiah, for the Messiah is going to be born and John
is going to be the messenger that will go before Him.
An angel had arrived from space, with the mighty hosts of
heaven, and all attention was focused on this earth. Palestine was to become
the focal point of an event, which had been in process of preparation for
thousands upon thousands of years. One hundred and sixty thousand light years
or more, before, we are told by Harvard University, a nova had burst and sent
forth a headless comet, which had taken 160,000 light years to get into
position to move from the head of Aquila to the head of Virgo.
So we see the vastness of time preparation. No Adamite had
walked the earth when God made the plans and set in motion the chain of events
that would culminate, 160,000 light years later, in the appearance of a sign
in the sky, to herald His own arrival on earth as Redeemer of His people. And
He was born on earth, in the racial family of His own begotten offspring, less
than 5,500 years after He had placed Adam on the earth. The plans of God may
seem to grind exceedingly slow, from the standpoint of human measures, but let
me assure you that they have come with an exactness that causes you to know
that all things are in the hollow of His hand.
When we think of the magnitude of the preparations God made
for His birth and appearance, among those that were His family on this speck
of earth, when we realize these plans were made so many millenniums before the
event occurred, we can begin to appreciate the tremendous importance of the
event. And please remember that his event took place in a great panorama of
this world�s history. How many conquerors had stepped down out of the steppes
of Asia to destroy the Adamic race? How many hordes of Philistines and
Canaanites had come against the household of Adam and the seed of Israel? But
through all the heartaches and problems and troubles, which were a part of
their lives and living, their Heavenly Father was born among them as a babe,
at the exact time and place He had planned the event to occur, more than
160,000 light years before yes, even before this earth was formed.
When we sometimes think about the situations that surround
us today, we may say, how can we survive these things? Let us be assured that
all things are a part of His plan. For He has demonstrated how He works with
minuteness and detail, even in the vast expanse of the universe, for a single
point of event, and all other events of history were only incidental and only
a part of the route by which men traveled to arrive at that event. So also
every catastrophe that surrounds us today, whether it be the hordes of world
communism, whether it be the threatening Khrushchev or the battle in Laos with
the Red Chinese, or the troubles within our own nation with the enemies of
Christ seeking to destroy us, or any of these things or of all these things,
remember they are all a part of the panorama of God�s plan.
Now we are on the track to another event that will be
greater in magnitude than the hour of Christ�s birth, and this event is
grinding out, with the same precision as the one of His birth two thousand
years ago.
When we look back upon the event of His birth, which was
tremendously important and absolutely essential for the redemption of His own
family, we know it was an insignificant event to the other racial people on
earth. But when He comes again, it will be an earth-shattering event, because
of the great power of His glory and His majesty, which will be revealed at
that time.
When this event comes to pass, we can look back on all our
present troubles and say, as the Apostle Paul said, "I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us." The grace of which you are part of will be
revealed in us, because, one day in a panorama of great events, this mighty
God, with the hosts of heaven in space ships from His entire universe, came to
visit us.
One of those who came was Michael, a great archangel to our
God, who commanded the battle fleets of the Most High and all the hosts of
heaven. These were thousands upon thousands times ten thousand times ten
thousand ships at his command, a multitude beyond your ability and mine to
understand and count. And Gabriel, one of the great and mighty archangels of
the heavens who commanded one-third of all the creations and angelic hosts and
the whole vast area of the Milky Way, also came to earth before Christ was
born, nine months before the event, to speak to a woman in the city Galilee
called Nazareth. This was not just an ordinary angel, not just a messenger,
but Gabriel himself who commanded one-third of all the creations and angelic
hosts of the universe.
I want you to realize that when we say we have one hundred
and twenty-six trillion suns out there, and we magnify that by all the other
planets in the solar systems around them, and here is a living being, an
archangel who controls all creations and angelic hosts on the planets
surrounding one-third of one hundred and twenty-six trillion suns, you can
understand how important he was. But Gabriel received at command from the
Eternal, from the center of the universe, from the throne of God. For it says
there came an angel from the throne of God, and he was Gabriel the archangel,
and he came to this lass in Palestine nine months before the event which we
are discussing to place, and he said to her, "Hail, thou art highly favored,
the Lord is with thee: blessed are thou among women." (Never had anything like
this happened before.) "Thou hast been selected, thou are to have the greatest
honor anyone has ever received in all history of creation, for thou art to be
the mother of God. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth as a son
the fullness of God dwelling bodily, and thou shalt call his name Jesus."
She said, "How could this be? I have never known a man. How
could this be, that God would so honor me?"
Then the angel said to her, "This is your destiny, for thou
art to be the mother of God. And thy cousin Elisabeth also has been visited,
and she also is with child and is already now in the sixth month, and the
child which she has is the messenger of God. He is to go and prepare the way
for the Messiah, he is to tell the people to make the way straight, and he is
to proclaim righteousness and the coming of the King. What a strange
phenomenon!
The Gospel of Luke portrays some of the mighty pageantry of
these events, and many of the churches of Christendom continually repeat the
words because they are enthralled by the magnitude of what was said. "And Mary
said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."
And the angel departed from her.
Mary then arose and went in haste into the hill country,
into a city of Juda, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted her
cousin Elisabeth. And when Elisabeth heard the salutation, the very babe John
the Baptist leaped in her womb; and she was suddenly filled with the Holy
Spirit, the mighty vibration of the life wisdom of God.
And Elisabeth said to Mary, "Blessed are thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Whence is this, that the mother of my
God has visited me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in
my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed:
for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the
Lord."
Then said Mary, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my
spirit hath rejoiced in Yahweh my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate
of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me
blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things. And holy is His
name. And His mercy is on they that fear Him from generation to generation. He
hath shewed strength with His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the
imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the might from their seats, and
exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and
the rich He hath sent away empty. He hath helped His servant Israel, in
remembrance of His mercy; as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his
seed for ever."
It is recorded that Mary remained with her cousin for about
three month, and then she returned to her own house to await the passing of
the nine months of her conception. She was a waiting a great event, and, in
anticipation of that event, the very sky was unfolding the miracle.
Jupiter and Saturn, the symbols of God�s Kingdom and
Satan�s kingdom, and the Wanderers in the Sky, had three times come in
conjunction. Across the heavens above had moved the "Sign of Wonder." And in
that hour, as the shepherds were upon the hills, the magnitude of the event
again became quite clear. "And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and
the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and the angel said unto them,
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, for unto you is
born this day in Bethlehem, the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the
Lord."
He didn�t carry that message to Africa. That message wasn�t
carried to Asia. It was carried to you. And through you the world would sing,
because God was redeeming His people, was reestablishing His Kingdom, was
fulfilling the purpose of the plan, which He had made from before the
foundation of the world.
The very air was charged. There had been coming, from all
over the universe, great and mighty hosts of space; and now, the hosts of
heaven were standing by.
The magnitude of this event can be understood only when we
realize that, nine months before, the great archangel Gabriel had been sent in
person, by God, to tell the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and bear a
child that would be the embodiment of God. Then at the time of his birth the
archangel Michael, with command of one-third of the universe, had been sent in
person to bear the message to the Shepard�s, and with him came the mighty and
tremendous hosts of heaven. For Michael was the commander of hosts; and
everywhere he went, there went with him, always, the hosts of heaven. In that
day when the announcement was made to the shepherds, it says in Luke, "And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the hosts of heaven." You can
read what it says in the Gospel of Luke. It says that round about were the
heavenly hosts!
In a daylong before, when Elijah was speaking as a prophet,
the hosts of the enemy were gathering against him, and his servant was greatly
disturbed, and he said, "O man of God, the enemy is gathering around." Then
Elijah said, "I just want you to see something, something I see which you
don�t see. Just for this moment, I hope your eyes can be focused on this." And
his servant looked, and lo, he saw the great and mighty hosts of God�s
Kingdom. He saw the chariots round about, he saw the mighty warriors, he saw
the great military staff of Michael, and he saw the force of divine power. So
it isn�t always with your video plane to see some thing, even when they are
all around you.
We have discovered in our time that there are laws of
science that we do not understand. But there are technicians out in space, in
the universe, who know so much more about these things than we do, at this
time, that even their solid ships can be invisible to us, except when they
wish them to be seen. We have proof of this, because across our radar screens
we have seen the evidence. We see things passing across the screens, but we
don�t see the objects with our eyes then suddenly, maybe, they do appear.
But I want you to know that at the time of that event,
nearly two thousand years ago, the hosts of heaven were standing by and they
displayed their presence, for when the Wise Men left the palace of Herod,
remember that a "light" went before them. The Scriptures says, "Star," but
this is a mistranslation in the King James Version, as the old Alexandrian
script tells us. And the light, which came out of the heavens, shone down upon
them and led them down the road the spot in Bethlehem where the Christ child
lay.
We know that no star came down, but the light did go before
them. The Wise Men couldn�t see the ship they were following, but they could
see the glory. The shepherds couldn�t see the great fleet of accompanying
ships that were in the sky above them, but they could see the glory.
I would like to call back to your remembrance that
magnificent day when the Eternal came and stood upon Mount Sinai and spoke to
Moses and brought the law to Israel. It says in the thirty-third chapter and
the second verse of Deuteronomy, that the Lord sailed or flew from Sinai over
mount Seir and shined for His lights from mount Paran, and there was with Him
ten thousand of His saints. You read that second verse of the thirty-third
chapter of Deuteronomy and you will learn that God didn�t come alone. He came
with one of the great fleets of space. He came with the mighty hosts of
heaven. And ten thousand of His saints were there, on that great day, when He
delivered unto the race, which was His Kingdom, the laws and oracles of the
Kingdom.
But how much greater was the magnitude of the day when God
was to be born into the body of a man, when the transference of the fullness
of God was to pass from heaven to earth and lay in a manger, when all the
guardian angels of time, without challenge, were charged with the super job of
standing by, when the forces of the hosts of heaven were to proclaim their joy
for this event.
It shows you, my friends, that all the thinking in the
planes of spirit are attuned with God, that great numbers of celestial beings
would gather for this event and sing their carols of heralding joy; because
the redemption of the sons and daughters on the earth, was an event of such
magnitude to them, that they were happy about it and expressed their
happiness.
Sometimes we become so deeply engrossed in our affairs that
we hardly think abut the children of the Kingdom, about their welfare or about
their status. But there is a great love that fills God�s children. There is a
force that brings them to meditate on the same things in a pattern of thought.
But if you want to know something about the magnitude of the pattern that
exits among the spiritual beings in the celestial planes, and understand
something of their great desire to see all things in harmony in the universe,
then consider how it must have been for the angels and mighty minions of God,
like Gabriel and Michael and all who were there, who were so filled with the
intensity of this event that their hearts were filled with joy.
Some people say they don�t like to think about heaven, they
just like to think about the earth. But I like to think about earth, when
heaven bends so close to it that everybody on earth hears the hosts of heaven
sing. I like to think about what God has placed around us, when I hear the
great war threats coming out of the Canaanites of today, when today�s modern
Philistines are making their mighty missiles and their mighty jets, while men
are talking about peace on earth and good will to all men.
We know there is no peace, because the powers of darkness
and evil hate God�s Kingdom. Then I like to think how close to earth heaven
bends, how close to earth�s battlements and its fortresses, how great is the
magnitude of the events which God has planned and of which we are a part.
There can be no question about the events of that night,
for there, traveling before the three Wise Men, was the vehicle of glory, and
it led them exactly to the spot were they had journeyed to meet. History was
to show us the exactness of the scientific revelations which these men had
been following, for the revelations had been recorded and the event was
anticipated; and the words of Enoch prove that our people knew what they were
looking for, as they had known all those years from the time of those
revelations until the Wise Men arrived. The race that looked for the Messiah
are the people, today, who worship Him and are in festivity, today, because He
was born.
Some people have said this should be so solemn an event
that men should be somber and they should be meditative and they shouldn�t be
filled with joy and laughter. My friends, there is no somberness in God�s
Kingdom. He doesn�t want His people to be somber. He wants a people rejoicing,
He wants a people happy. He wants a people filled with the light and the glory
of His presence. He came to set you free, not to put you in bondage. He came
to let you see the vastness of His grace, to be that grace and manifestation,
not to cast upon you fear. He didn�t want men to drop down at His feet and not
look up at His face. He wanted His children to be able to run up and say,
"Hello, Father, "just as you want your children to throw their arms around
you. You wouldn�t want them to fall down in fear when you came by. And your
Father had tried to cast out all fear and has justified you by the act of His
grace: it started with His birth it culminated with His resurrection.
You are the children of freedom, the household of liberty,
the Kingdom that God planted on the earth. Probably, no nation in this world
can appreciate the value of liberty as much as we do in this nation, because
God gave unto us the responsibility of lifting high the image and standard of
liberty to the world.
So it is that we look back upon that event and consider the
magnitude of it, when the heavenly choirs sang and the mighty fleets and hosts
of heaven stood by, for it was an hour in which God was born among men. This
was the mighty miracle; this was the thing in vision, which became the
cardinal doctrine of Christian church: that God identified Himself with His
kinsmen who were His relatives and He said, therefore, that He came to be one
of them. He was born out of the same substance of flesh and the body, the
bones, the structure of the body God dwelt in, was like that of your race. And
the spirit that dwelt in Him was like the spirit that dwells in you but the
absolute fullness of it dwelt in Him, for this was very God. That is why the
Apostle Paul could say the fullness of God dwelt bodily with us. No wonder an
effulgent glory shone around that manger.
Many people think that the events of those days were
fulfilled in twenty-four hours, but it was not that way. The Wise Men had been
coming; they say the "star." The shepherds were on the hills when the
announcement of the birth of Christ was made; they went down to the manger.
The Wise Men journeyed from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. They didn�t get there the
same day that the shepherds arrived; they arrived a day and a half later. And
still the event was in operation.
It was almost eight days after the birth of Christ when the
fourth Wise Man arrived, when he went to the temple, and then went to the seat
of authority and found that Herod was a very angry person, because, so far,
the other Wise Men had not returned to tell him where Christ was born.
It was the eighth day after Christ�s birth that Mary and
Joseph took the child Jesus to the temple for His presentation. And there in
the temple was Simeon, an aged priest who had all of his life waited for the
deliverance of his people. As Simeon took the Christ Child in his arms he
thanked God that there had been spared unto him the opportunity to see this
visitation of God among His people, the promise of salvation to the people of
Israel an event concerning which the whole world eventually hear and know:
that Christ had come. And he said in prayer, "Now let Thy servant die in
peace. My joy is full, now that I have beheld this." And there was one Anna, a
prophetess and a widow, about eighty-four years of age, who departed not from
the temple but served God continually day and night, who proclaimed, "This is
very God!"
Mary and Joseph then took the child and left the temple
after the blessing, and they returned to Nazareth. There, the spirit of God
moved upon them and warned them to go down into Egypt. They left that night
and went down into Egypt, because they had been warned in a dream of the evil
that would seek to destroy the child soon after his birth.
That is why it was on the ninth day that the fourth Wise
Man arrived. It was on the ninth day that he fulfilled his destiny, about
which we will have more to say in our sermon tonight, as we consider the
vastness of this great design of the heavens and of its purpose and measure.
But there is no question, today, that all the values of God�s plan and purpose
that involved His identifying Himself with you, were filled with a mystery
that thrills the soul to contemplate.
It is hard for us to realize that in that babe was the life
energy that held the universe together. It is hard for us to realize that, as
that boy grew in stature, the wisdom and the knowledge which was within Him
would confound the wisest theologians; that the miracles He was to perform and
the things which He was to declare, as He walked the earth, were to become
living words whose vibratory capacity would change the minds of men and
transform their lives and change the world.
When Jesus spoke about John the Baptist, who was born of
Elisabeth the cousin of Mary, He said, "Never has there been a man born of
woman like this man." For this was Elijah that was to come, whose spirit had
ascended into heaven, but by some strange miracle had been incarcerated by God
in the body of John the Baptist, to prepare the way for the King.
You and I, living at the present time at the close of
another year, look back over that panorama of history and our hearts overflow
with joy when we contemplate the significance of the birth of Christ, even
after the passage of nearly two thousand years of time. The enthusiasm had not
diminished. The great lift in the hearts of the children of Israel, the
Christian civilization of your time, had not in any way lost its zeal for the
celebration of His birth, Nor, my friends, has there been any thing that has
eclipsed in magnitude this event in the lives of men.
We have had philosopher�s come and go. We have had
historians record the pageantry of the conquerors. We have been moved by
oratory and we have been swayed by the work of the artists. We have felt the
emotion that comes from listening to some magnificent musical creations by
composers of tremendous talent. Human emotion can be touched in its vibratory
plane but the strains of beautiful music. But there is nothing that charges
the soul of man quite like the realization that God is his kinsman that God
made a special trip out of the vastness of His universe, from the throne of
God in the far off Pleiades, to earth, and that God was born in earth among
his own particular race of people. And did you know that for the following
thirty-three years, after His birth in earth, that the earth was the throne,
the seat of the universe? Did you know the whole universe hung around this
point?
Did you know that all of Satan�s design, to destroy Christ,
was to take over the universe? Did you know that Satan worked incessantly to
that end? And for thirty-three years, at every opportunity, he tried to
destroy this body. For he knew that God had not put on immortality in this
body, but had taken on a body just like you have, so He could conquer and
overthrow death; in that body, for you. Yes, this was the miracle of God.
The heavens above had been filled with angels. The sky was
clear, and suddenly it was overshadowed by the glory of heaven. In every part
of the world, people are still remembering that. There has been lighting of
lights, there has been decking of trees and someone has said, "My, this is a
pagan custom." It might be, but it still proves who you are. Do you remember
what the scripture said? It said that you would go out in the forest and cut
down a green tree, a workman with an axe, and you would bring it into the
house and you would fix it with hammer and nails and deck it with silver and
gold. That is what the Scripture said you would do and you are doing that.
Don�t let someone tell me that the Palestinians are God�s Israel. I don�t here
any of any Christmas trees down there in Palestine. You see, my friends, the
children of God have adopted strange customs and picked up traditions, and may
have added these things to make a part of their celebration, but the fact
remains that you who the Scripture said would do it, are the ones that are
doing it. And the real reason you do it, is because it is a part of the
organization of your festivity.
It is good to say, Merry Christmas. It is good to say,
Joyous Christmas. Could there be any greater joy than to know that God has
become one of us, and then has lifted us back again to His own stature? That
you stand guiltless and you stand free, that you can sleep without fear!
You know, the greatest conquest of fear was what God
accomplished for us in His body, that as God dwelt among us, He let us
understand God, as men in the flesh had never been able to understand Him
before. In the power of His resurrection and before His ascension, He told His
disciples that they were free; and when He carried into the heavens the body
of a man and He was enveloped in glory, He raised the element of humanity to
its highest level of divinity. Because of that, today, those words "Ye are
gods, and all of you are the children of God. Why shall ye die like men?" are
the words that take on stupendous significance. For the hour is coming when,
because God was born as man, and there was a day when God was so born, you
shall live as gods and never die. What greater hope, what greater fulfillment?
What greater reason for rejoicing?
This day when we look back over that panorama, we realize
why God charged the event, why the angels and the host of heaven, the mighty
company of the Eternal, all were present that day. It was because of the
tremendous importance of the hour. Then I know the promise will be fulfilled,
that this same Christ shall return as King of kings and Lord of lords. Then I
know the promise will be fulfilled, that his same Christ shall return as King
of kings and Lord of lords. Then all the space ships, that men�s eyes do not
as yet behold, will be visible for all to see. At that time, every invisible
force shall become visible, all the angels and hosts of heaven and all of your
race, the sons and daughters of God from the four corners of the universe, the
elect of God from the four corners of heaven, shall accompany Him in that
forthcoming majestic hour and that hour is not very far removed.
I can lift up my eyes to Leo; I can see also that there, in
Leo, is a promise. I wait for it to burst like a new nova; for some night,
before your very eyes, there shall be in that sign of Leo, a bursting glowing
light, as though a star had exploded. You will say when did it explode? It
might have exploded a hundred thousand years ago, but it is going to dawn on
you one day with a great bursting light, and the light will only be
overshadowed by the suddenness with which His glory will fill the earth.
He will keep that appointment. Then suddenly will disappear
all the problems and fears, and even in the moment of that mighty conquest,
when every sword shall be broken and when every enemy shall cry out, and when
all the powers of darkness shall lose their force, the light that will fill
the earth will also flood every soul. In that day when they will say, bring
forth the royal diadem and crown Him King; you will know that it started with
a birthday in the city of Bethlehem. It shall end when every knee shall bow
and every tongue shall proclaim that He is King of kings and Lord of lords.
