December 4. For God's little people.

In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be registered

each to his own town.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea,

to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem,

because he was of the house and lineage of David,

to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

Luke 2.1 to 5.

Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that God ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem, as the prophecy in Micah 5-2 shows,

and that he so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah's mother and legal father

were living not in Bethlehem, but in Nazareth.

And that in order to fulfill his Word and bring two unheard-of,

insignificant little people to Bethlehem that first Christmas, God put it in the heart of

Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world should be enrolled each in his own town.

A decree for the entire world in order to move two people 70 miles.

Have you ever felt like me little and insignificant in a world of 7 billion people where all the news is about big political

and economic and social movements and outstanding people with global significance and lots

of power and prestige. If you have, don't let that make you disheartened or unhappy.

For it is implicit in Scripture that all the mammoth political forces and all the giant

industrial complexes, without there even knowing it, are being guided by God, not for their own sake, but for the sake of God's

little people. The little Mary and the little Joseph who have to be got from Nazareth to

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