After the birth of Jesus, Joseph was warned by an angel, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." Joseph did not argue with this holy intuition, which was a message from God; he promptly obeyed, though humanly speaking it might have seemed strangely unnatural to go into a far country steeped in idolatry and mesmerism. He resolutely turned in the opposite direction from home, friends, and his trade, that the child Jesus might be hidden from the animal instinct which governed Herod. Joseph fulfilled his earthly mission in protecting the infant whose subsequent career was to start a revolution in human consciousness, and establish spiritual healing as the proof of this fundamental change in thought.
For many years the early Christians proved by their lives that a revolution was taking place in their thought, and they gave the outward sign, namely, divine healing. The little group of God-inspired men and women who formed themselves into the primitive church at Jerusalem had an exceedingly simple form of government, but they zealously bore record of their Master, healed the sick, raised the dead, and preached the good news.
As the centuries rolled by, human thought reverted to its former materialistic basis; the gospel was preached, but the sick were not healed, nor were the dead raised. Pomp and display, ambition for power, bickerings over nonessentials, constant demands that more money be poured out by the laity to support those in office, and many other indications of materiality permeate the tragic history of the Christian church after the third and fourth centuries. Ezekiel's prophecy was reflected in human experience—the shepherds were feeding themselves instead of feeding the flock.
