complicated solution to a problem in your life, or perhaps to the particular burden that you have? Do you realize God didn’t need anything more than dust to make man? When it came to a monu ment, He didn’t need an architect, just a heap of twelve stones. When it came for a place to dwell and to bless men. He didn’t need anything except planks covered by badger skins. When it came to Samson slaying a thousand people, a jawbone of an ass was good enough. Why? God takes the foolish things to confound the wise. He takes the little things and the power less things — the weak things — to confound the mighty things. That is why the greatest offense to the preach ers in the Christian church today is a man who never went to seminary, a man who was a farm boy, a man who did not have all the background that so many preachers seek to have. But when he proclaims Christ, sophisticates kneel, lives are changed, marriages are healed — mine was — joy comes where there was sorrow. In Wales in the last century there lived a scoun drel. His father died when he was nine. When he was 17, he could neither read nor write. He heard someone talk of Christ, and it spoke to his heart. He was converted. The old gang with whom he caroused attacked him and put out one of his eyes. At 17 Christmas Evans, illiterate but converted, wanted to declare Christ and Him crucified. For seven years he tried to steal other men’s prayers and sermons to memorize them. He would have people read to him. At 24 he was ordained to work among the humble folk like himself . . . they couldn’t find a place low enough for him. But he caused people all over Wales to literally jump for joy of the Lord Jesus. And people said, “The mes sage he speaks, speaks to me.” No, his English wasn’t good. He undoubtedly butchered it, but the Lord used him. I wonder today if you are selling yourself short because you sell your Lord short. You say, “ I’m not much, I’m insignificant. You don’t know how un trained I am—I lack college. I’m inadequate.” God says, “You I can use. The Paul in Jerusalem who tried to track down the Christians I couldn’t use. He was more self-righteous than anybody, cocky, hung up on himself. But Paul in Corinth I could use, because he spoke not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling, and for a very specific purpose. He spoke in demonstration of the Holy Spirit and in power, that their faith might be grounded in the power of God. Such is not limited by anything you lack, or anything you are not, or any place you haven’t been, or anything you cannot now do.” This is God. He made man from dust and from man He can make a servant. Why is man so complicated and God so simple? Reprinted from Whitened Harvest.
went over and got five smooth pebbles. Toward him came the oversized Goliath, larger than heavy weight Italian boxer Primo Camera, with all the power of physical might against a weak teen-ager! But Goliath is slain. And God is glorified. “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” You may not be on the map, but when all cities are eliminated, you will be the important one. And to a girl — quite probably illiterate — a peasant girl who lived in the little town o f Naza reth, the angel of the Lord came and said, “You will bear God when He becomes flesh.” I don’t think anyone who is practical would envision Mary as having finished a finishing school. We make her beautiful because we want to—she was quite possi bly plain. But He chose Mary because He had the complete option. And now there are five thousand men (in those days men didn’t count women) there to be fed. There were children also to be fed. He said, “Doesn’t anybody have any food?” And one disci ple awkwardly suggests there is one little fellow who has two fishes and five loaves. Jesus said, “ That will do.” He said, “ You pass these out.” And they were all fed ! And we are told that when they had all eaten, there were twelve basketsful left over, not o f garbage, but filled with fishes and loaves, enough to feed many more. Now then, go to the cross. Not an unusual cross. Not one gilded with silver or gold, just a regular cross used for punishment, a common cross between two common men. One thief joins the crowd in jeering; the other strangely sees the glory o f the moment. As you stand and gaze you will see all the bigness of the world focused on the littleness of that moment. Paul said that the Jews required a sign and the Greeks (the Gentiles) sought after wisdom. They were subject to the rational, subject to the logical and reasonable. They wanted to be able to under stand things and prove them to their own satisfac tion. Paul said he preached Christ crucified. To the Jews it was a stumbling block. To the Greek mind it was foolishness. But the foolishness of God is stronger than men. At the cross, which seems foolish, you see the wisdom of God. And at the cross, which seems weak, you see the strength of God. There is power to forgive and to change your life and to change my life — something intellectualism cannot do. There isn’t a thought you can think, an act you can perform that would change your life. But it is at the cross that lives are changed, in the wisdom and in the power of God. Now, how is it with you? Are you seeking a
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