Section 5
undetected. His most intimate way of guiding us is so natural that we scarcely perceive He is guiding us at all, yet somehow we have been led; something has happened. It is often by this quiet, inward activity of God that we receive our greatest guidances.
If you look into the history of the universe, if you look into the history of the Old Testament and into the history of the New, and if you care fully examine the whole history of mankind, you will arrive at the same conclusion: God is a God who hides Himself. This universe was cre ated by Him; the heavens and the earth are the works of His hand; yet for six millennia men have beheld all these things and not one man has ever seen God. The Scripture says of the Old Testament times that no man ever saw Him; but of the New Testament times it says, "The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18).
And yet, when this only begotten Son came for the very purpose of showing forth the Father, He hid Him in a human life—a human life whose "appearance was marred," a human life that had "no attracting form nor majesty" (Isa. 52:14; 53:2). And He came from Galilee, an insignificant province, and from the town of Nazareth, a small