Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 23, 2018 | Discover The Wonder - Nate's Story

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December 23, 2018 | Discover The Wonder - Nate's Story · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Shalom.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Nathan.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know why I'm here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know why you've invited me.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because of who I am, because I'm not anybody.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I've done anything, because I haven't.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply because one day in my insignificant life, I happened to be at the right place at the right time.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even being here, I realize I don't belong here with you fine people.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: For even if you came to my time, my place, and you saw me on the street or pass by, you wouldn't take a second glance.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not anybody and I haven't done anything.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But in his good pleasure, Almighty God chose for me to be where I was when I was, and because I was in the right place at the right time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you about that.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I hear that you have met a couple of my friends this month.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Kim, the innkeeper in Bethlehem, has a wife, Malika, and uh a few weeks ago, David the Baker.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I met him first, he was a boy.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Davy, we called him.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: His older brother Jethro had just joined us, shepherds.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jethro and I are uh became shepherds in different ways.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: He had a choice.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: There was no other place for me to go.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I uh was or am or was an orphan, no parents.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course I had parents, but my father died uh before I was born, and my mother, I don't know uh why she died, maybe of a broken heart, maybe because I gave her problems in childbirth.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: All I know is that the last thing she did on the earth was give birth to me.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was born, I had no parents.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: My aunts and uncles passed me around, but they had large families and little money.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when I turned six, they no longer had room for me.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I wandered out into the fields, and there I saw a large flock of sheep, and I followed them around, and uh the shepherds let me, and uh, for the little that I did to help them, they would give me food and a place to sleep by the fire, and that's how I became a shepherd.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm sure you've heard by now that shepherds are not as popular in my day as they are in yours.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few reasons for that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: One is, of course, because we to put it bluntly, we s we stink.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We we you try following around behind sheep all day long and see if you don't step in something once in a while.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Shepherd gets smoke in his eyes and stuff between his toes.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say the only time we go to school is for show and smell.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, they don't say that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just made that up.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But but we do have an odor and we have a religion that is based on cleanliness.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's not much water to swim in uh when you're a shepherd.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: You you don't have the time for that, and so we are dirty.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not so much that, it's uh it's the fact that we steal, I think, that makes people unhappy to see us come and happy to see us go.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are known to be poachers and trespassers and and uh light-fingered, and we uh, if you're not in your home, we'll graze our sheep.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we have 200 of them, we'll graze our sheep on your pasture, and it's not my fault if uh our sheep, goats, eat the grass right down to the dirt.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if you're not careful, we'll take your melons or your loaves of bread as well, and if you leave your silver out, we'll take that too.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: People hate us, they don't like us much, and so we've developed an attitude.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: One day I went to town and I was picking up uh some stuff for the six of us, and uh a couple of town boys, this is when I was younger, cornered me and said, uh you Shepard?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yep.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Did you sleep with the sheep?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I said, that's my job.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, What about the smell?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I said, the sheep just have to get used to it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: We make fun of ourselves.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Shepherd, I knew, got arrested for thieving.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: He'd stolen a bag of money right off of the belt of a proud Pharisee.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was really the judge's fault what happened later.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: The judge thought he'd be funny, and he banged his gavel when they drug the shepherd in.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Odor in the court.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he said to the shepherd, uh, so you've been caught red-handed with the silvers.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's anything you want to say in your defense?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: The shepherd said, Well, sir, uh, yes, uh I did steal the money, but uh God told me to.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The judge roared, uh, do you want to add blasphemy to your list of crimes?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, sir, it's just that uh the good book says that a fool, and here he pointed at the Pharisee, a fool and his money are soon parted, and God's wish is my command.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: He grinned, he knew he'd made a funny, and they slapped the grin right off his face.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't matter to him because the uh everyone else had roared, he except for the Pharisee.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said even the judge cracked a smile.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then they passed a law one year that we shepherds would no longer be allowed in the court courtrooms, at least as witnesses, because they couldn't believe that we could tell the truth.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: What was worse, that we wouldn't be allowed any longer in the temple up in Jerusalem.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was worse because that's our most holy and beautiful place, and that's where you go to meet with God, and that's where the whole country goes three times a year for the national celebrations, the feasts.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: We were no longer invited.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: That night at the campfire there was a lot of anger.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: One shepherd said they uh they want what we've got, meaning the sheep, but they don't want us.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it was true, the priests and the Levites counted on us to supply them with the spotless sheep that they sold at an exorbitant price to pilgrims who would come to make a sacrifice.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Jethro, he uh, Davy's older brother, he Jethro, he said, yeah, they they care more about our sheep than they do about us.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Calm down.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Amos, the oldest one of us and the wisest, he said, calm down, everyone.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, there's nothing that's changed.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, none of you thought you were getting into a noble profession, did you?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I said, but uh I thought shepherding was a noble profession back.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't King David once a shepherd?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, said Amos, but uh the times have changed, our country has changed, and shepherds have changed in the last thousand years.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me ask you something.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, when's the last time any of you were even in the temple or in a courtroom?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: We all looked down.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said, and for that matter, when's the last time any of you were invited anywhere to a wedding or even to a funeral or to the celebration at the at the birth of a newborn baby?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Someone grumbled, Well, not since I became a shepherd.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean, Amos said.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm just saying that you need to accept your lot.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a shepherd, no one's gonna like you.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna want to see you around.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna invite you anywhere.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you asked, would we have liked to be invited into society?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would we have liked to belong?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the answer is yes, but we had to accept that it was what it was.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: The only time it really bothered me is when I would go into Bethlehem and I would see a father and a mother and children.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that that had never happened in my life and would never happen.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Would never happen to me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: That away from my sheep and the shepherds, I was not wanted, and that I didn't belong.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just had to accept it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: That night, um I stared into the fire while the others went to sleep, and Amos had assigned himself the watch.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um shepherding is a what you call 24-7 occupation.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's all day and it's all night, especially at night when the wild things come out and want to steal what it is you're protecting.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard Amos singing.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: He sang under his breath.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was singing an old song, he sang a lot.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the words.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not sure I remember the tune.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I see him.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But not right now.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I perceive him, but not yet here.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I said, tell me about that song, Amos.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said, What song?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I said, song you always sing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've uh see him, but not right now, perceive him.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And not yet here, a star will rise out of Jacob, a scepter will come out of Israel.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you write that song?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You make that up?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: He laughed.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Moses did.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said, many, many years ago.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I said.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: He said it means that somebody important is coming.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It said somebody, somebody he calls a star, somebody he calls a scepter.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: That means a ruler.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna come.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we should watch for him.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was quiet for a while, and then he said, You know, over here in Bethlehem is where the Messiah is coming.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the prophet Micah says that even though Bethlehem is a small village, yet out of Bethlehem will come the one who's going to be the scepter, the ruler over Israel.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can see that it meant a lot to Amos, but it didn't mean a lot to me.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was an old and ancient promise, and it didn't seem to matter much to me.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I learned that old and ancient promises have a way of coming alive when you least expect it.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Winter turned into spring, and we were at our favorite place near the town of Bethlehem, a place just outside called Migdal Ader.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Migdal means uh tower.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ader means flock.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was flock tower.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It had one of those stone towers.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been to my country, maybe you've seen them here and there.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: These stone towers, about 10 feet tall, ten feet wide, made out of stones.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: We shepherds build them with steps leading up so that we can watch our flocks easier.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mygdal Ader, it's called Flock Tower for that reason.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it was then that I had the most thrilling moment of my life up till then.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might think that watching sheep is a boring job.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: During the day it could seem boring, but following along behind sheep makes you forget everything else in life.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But at night is when it gets exciting.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: At night is when the bears or the lions or the thieves come wanting a taste of lamb.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when a lion comes and you're on watch and you see the predator approaching, that's when your heart beats fast and your legs turn to jelly.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you jump up and you yell, lion, and then you load your sling for you, like little David, know that the only thing protecting your sheep and yourself is your sling and your staff at that moment.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And running down the stairs, you load your sling, shouting all the while, and you run straight at the lion, slinging stones all the way, and hoping the other shepherds will wake up and help you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the first time that happened, there at Mygdal Aider, and I chased the lion away, came back and collapsed at the fire, still shaking.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: The other shepherds made fun of me.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said, there they said, there's no reason for you to be scared.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lions won't eat you.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't like the taste of people.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was embarrassed, but I made them laugh.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, maybe you know that and I know that, but did that lion know that?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I was funny.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that was the most thrilling and terrifying moment of my life until another night at Migdal Aider.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw something far more terrifying than a lion.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amos and I had gone up to the top of the tower, and he was dozing, and I was playing my shepherd's read, which is uh like your recorder.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um and uh the sheep were grazing uh quietly uh as the sound of the music washed over them.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sheep don't sleep like we do.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: They only sleep about four hours a day, and so they doze off and they graze all day long and and during the night as well, and and it was quiet, and and then uh it was well darker.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was darker than usual.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: The the the the light of the fire only penetrated the dark a little ways out from the tower.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, it was as though the air changed.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like perhaps a cloud had moved off of the moon, only there was no moon that night.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I felt my skin uh tingle, and I wondered if maybe I sensed a lion or a bear uh nearby.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, there he or it was directly in front of me.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sensed that it was a he.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that it was an angel.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: People say, Nathan, how did you know it was an angel?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I say, I I just knew, you just know, but I I could see that it was a brilliant white, a burning white, not a warm fire kind of a white, but like a blue, clear, pale, cold kind of light that was cold and hot at the same time.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the light penetrated into me, and and it and it made me see all of the evil, all of the darkness inside me, the thievery, the lying, the self-pity.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it looked like sludge, and I knew that I was doomed, and I looked in the face, decided to look in the face of the one who I felt would be my executioner.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when I looked in the face of the angel, I became dizzy and nearly fell over, for he would not stand still.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was not at rest.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was moving, it was as though he was rushing at me all the time in a great speed.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And his hair was the long hair, was standing out behind him as if in a great wind, but there was no wind.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I could not understand that he would stay in the same place, but me moving.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then it struck me that he was not from our world, that he was an angel.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: He had come spinning across space into our world and was hovering there, rushing in order to stay in the same place at the same time in front of me.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: God croaked Amos, who'd woken beside me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, all six of us were now wide awake and petrified with terror.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel spoke, and his voice had no blood in it, like the sound of silver bells.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: As he said, Do not fear, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will be for all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is the Messiah, the Lord.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I understood what he was saying, that he was bringing us news, and it was good news.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: He said it was news for all people, and that there was the birth of the Messiah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I knew that I must be dreaming.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I must be imagining this because uh why would God send an angel across space to come to me, to come to us, to come to shepherds who don't matter to God or to anyone else who would not be believed if we shared this news.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, if God had great news like this, he would be sending it to someone good, someone honest, someone important, someone powerful.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, I must be dreaming.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then the angel was already speaking again.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, and this shall be a sign to you, you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I was astonished.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: For he was now not saying that he was giving us news, he was giving us a personal invitation.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: This could not be true.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Unto you, unto us was born a Savior, that we were invited to go to the bedside, a personal invitation to us who had never been invited anywhere.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had never attended a birth outside of my own birth, which was a tragedy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And had never been invited to anything.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the angel became two and four and eight and sixteen and thirty-two and a thousand and a million angels.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was as if the gate of heaven had broken down, and suddenly all of the angels had poured out, and there they were, and they were, it seemed full of joy, but for us it was a tornado of terrors, of pillars of light, whirling and and dancing and and racing, and it hurt.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: We were blinded, we were scorched, we were deafened with the noise.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet at the same time that I was being seized with the feeling that my mind was breaking into a thousand pieces, I was seized with joy, an ecstasy, a feeling that this was the greatest moment in history.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so the terror mixed with joy, I could not bear that it should go on, I could not bear that it should stop.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the sound, the deafening noise, resolved itself in my head into words, and I understood that a million angels, a million terrors called them, that they were all shouting the same thing, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all on whom his favor rests.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not an educated man, and I am not particularly known as intelligent.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And on a normal night I would never understand such words, but on that night of miracles, the understanding came with the words.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw what the angels saw, and I felt I knew what the angels knew, and I understood that they were saying that God was in the highest heaven, and this baby, this birth, would bring him glory, would bring him honor.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw, it was as if I saw what the angels saw, and scenes crossed my mind.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there I was with the angel in a garden paradise, and I saw as God put a man and a woman in that garden paradise.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then with the angel I watched as that man and that woman rebelled against God.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And with the angel, I watched as they were expelled from the garden, and the angel was placed to guard the gate.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw the angels at Sodom and Gomorrah as God judged their sin.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was there as they went down in the days of Isaiah and to the temple, and the angels cried to that sinful man, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt the confusion of the angels.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I felt their question over the centuries.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I felt their bewilderment.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: How can a holy God accept ever again sinful man?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Will God judge sinful man the way he judged the angel Lucifer?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Will he damn them all to hell forever?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then there I was with the angels for a moment at the gate of heaven, watching as the Prince of Heaven took off his crown of power and doffed his robe of brilliant light and plummeted to earth as a tiny dot and entered the womb of a girl.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And at that moment I understood, when the angels understood the answer to their question, that God had found a solution to the problem of how to reconcile himself to sinful man, that God would send himself to earth and he would become humanity, that he might draw humanity back to himself, that he might reconcile man to himself.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I saw that and when I understood that, I too burst out in praise.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: What a wise God, what a just God, what a great God we have.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw the angels pressing up against the gate of heaven for the last nine months, waiting to see this thing happen.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And tonight it had happened, and the Father unlatched the gate, and that is why they were here.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they were shouting, and I felt myself caught up in the roar of it, the roar of millions of voices.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all on whom his favor rests again and again and again.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: They roared.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: They roared.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when they said, and on earth peace to all on him who his favor rests, I understood somehow that they did not mean peace from warfare, that there would be war so long as on earth men had control.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, they meant peace between man and God.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: They meant a personal peace that comes to all on whom his favor rests, and his favor rests on all who accept his solution to the problem.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: All who understand that this baby is the answer to the problem of sinful man and a holy God, all who accept this baby as the savior of the world.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, as quickly as that roar had become had begun, it was gone.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: The angels were gone, and we were left alone, and the night was dark again, and I still couldn't see.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: But no longer was it because of the light, it was because of my tears, for they were gone, and it must have been a dream.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: For why would God give such news to shepherds?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And why would God make a personal invitation to someone like me?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then I heard Amos on the ground say, What are we waiting for?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Bethlehem.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Jethro said, Why?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Amos said, You heard him say, the city of David.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I could have hugged Amos at that moment, for I understood it wasn't a dream.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: He had heard it too, and off we went, bounding over the hills and jumping over the uh the rock walls, shouting, Did you see that?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And arguing, where are we going?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Arguing over what he meant by the sign and the manger and a child.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: We decided that the first place we would look would be maybe the most likely.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: That would be the manger in uh the innkeeper's cave where he allowed the guests to keep his animals.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: He had a manger there where they fed the cows.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: It made no sense that uh someone would put their newborn baby in a trough for feeding cattle, but that's where we went.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when we got close, we could see a dim light coming from the mouth of the cave and peering in.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: We saw, yes, a little oil lamp on the far rock ledge, and the animals moved aside, the horse and the donkeys and uh the goats.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there they were.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: There was a young couple, a very young couple, sitting on the straw with their backs against the cave wall, and and and and in front of them a manger Jethro said, It's just like the angel said.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a manger and a baby and strips of cloth.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, the young man jumped to his feet and he came toward us, motioning us to be quiet, and he said, What do you want?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: We said, Well, uh, an angel, strange as it may sound, an angel told us to come here that we would see a Messiah child.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I thought the young man might laugh or shake his head, but he nodded.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: He uh he said, I angel appeared to me too.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is Mary, my wife.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Joseph, and and the baby's name is is Yeshua.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Come.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we did, and as we knelt, he said to Mary, uh, who looked exhausted, Mary, and her eyes opened.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: She was she was a pretty girl.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Mary, these are shepherds.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: They uh angels appeared to them and told them about the baby, and they're here to uh to see the baby.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Mary smiled, the most beautiful smile, and and though she looked so exhausted, she sat up and she said, Please tell me all about it.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we did, and she listened, hung on every word.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how long we were there.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: The time passed.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: We shepherds worshiped as best we know how.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Mainly we stared at the baby.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, it seemed to occur to all six of us at the same time that we had left our flock alone and unattended out in a dangerous place, and so we made our goodbyes and left and ran all the way back, but needn't have worried, for when we arrived back, we saw that all was as it had been before.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: We sat around the fire and laughed and talked about what we had seen, and then the others dozed.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason I became sad thinking of.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: In our country, you see, uh, we we make a lot out of events like this, and when someone is going to have a baby, they hire musicians, and when the baby comes, all the musicians come and they have a big party, they have a celebration.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and the town comes, surrounds the house, and the musicians play, and it's a great thing.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh, Amos, Amos.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's sad.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, What could be sad on such a night?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said, it's sad because there's no celebration, there's no musicians, there's no singers.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he laughed.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: He said, So what do you think we saw here?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: God himself sent the musicians, sent the singers.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: He couldn't leave his baby without a without a celebration.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: He had a point.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you're awake, Amos, I said, I I have a real question for you.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, um, I don't understand why would God send such good news to us, to shepherds whom no one will believe.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, I said, why would God invite us personally to go see the child?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Amos said, I I don't know.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I I'm not sure.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he said it's um because we don't believe that we matter to God or to anyone else.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: All those good and honest people, those important, those powerful people, when they hear the news, when they get the invitation, they know they matter to God, and they'll assume the invitation is for them.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But God knows that some of us, people like you and me, some of us need a personal invitation, or else we won't think we're being invited.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Put his hand on my shoulder, he said, um, you know, Nathan, if you get invited somewhere, it's that's proof, isn't it, that no one's being left out?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he winked at me and I laughed.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: He had me there.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amos uh was old.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: He he died not long after that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: He died with a smile on his face.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: He said to me that he had come to have peace with God.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I die, I hope I die like Amos.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think I will.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I agree with his solution to the problem of my sin and his holiness.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, I uh I got an invitation.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you again for inviting me here because uh I don't take it lightly, I don't get invited places.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not anybody important.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I've never done anything important.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm here because one night I happened to be in the right place at the right time.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because I was, I received uh amazing invitation.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the most amazing creatures.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: I heard the most, wow, the greatest news.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I got the greatest invitation to go to a bedside to be part of a celebration, to see the baby who is the savior of the world.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've never done anything really.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that when I got the invitation, when God extended to me the invitation, I took him at his word.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's made all the difference.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: I hope someday you have the same chance.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me.