In this episode of What the Prophets Say, it's Christmas Day my friends and I'm
asking you this question, what is the greatest miracle in all of the Bible? See
you for this episode of What the Prophets Say. Well welcome to another
episode of What the Prophets Say with me Emma Stark and I'm joined in the studio
by Louise Reed. It is Christmas! Happy Christmas one and all! Happy Christmas everybody!
Wonderful time of the year. It is a wonderful time of the year. Do you feel
the most wonderful time of the year? Do you want to sing them a little Christmas song?
What's your favourite Christmas song? Well I like the harmony, the
descant because I grew up in choirs to Hark the Herald. Yes.
Triumphant. Yes, however I used to be a soprano until I started shouting whilst
I preached and I have totally screwed up my voice. Now you're a bass. Thanks Louise, it's not that bad.
I'm definitely not a first soprano in the choral singing. So I like to think I am
but I screech out the descant like a wailing strangled bird. So I do like
it but it's not a pretty sound. Okay. So but what I love the most is David, this is
the time of year David gets his trumpet out and plays all of the carols on his
trumpet. So because he's obviously my husband a classically trained musician
and when I first met him like 30 years ago he would have done on the street
kind of busking and... Just with a trumpet? Yeah just with a trumpet and he would have
made like loads of money because he would... he'd have a couple of real hits
that people would stop to listen to and then pour out their list change at
Christmas to the per freezing cold musician on the street. But is it the one
that goes and where there's not a pause for a breath and oh yeah
Oh that one. What's that? How does that... Ding Dong, Marilyn and I. It's such a long you know on the trumpet that people would pause and he would go...
That's amazing. And then people would throw money at him. So that's the merchandising of
Christmas by playing a Christmas carol. His talents no no end. I'm surprised he did it
because that wouldn't have been good for his fingers. Oh no he had fingerless gloves.
Oh yeah yeah he used to get utterly freezing but that's why they used to make
their money. But you know there's some amazing words and theology in some of
our Christmas carols and I'm going to say there's some Christmas carols that
are dire but there are some that have... My favorite carol I don't even know if
it's a carol but we used to sing it in my church when I was a child and I if
when I think about it it immediately touches my heart and it was called... Can I guess?
Mary had a little donkey. It's that one. I was having a serious moment there Emma. You completely stole that from me.
I know there there are some dreadful carols but this
song was called Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne and Thy Kingly Crown When Thou
Came Us to Earth for Me and we only sang it at Christmas and then it
comes into the chorus of the the end of the verse is just like two lines of a
refrain and it says oh come to my heart Lord Jesus there is room in my heart for
thee. So like it's a real old hymn with the old language but oh my goodness it
is just the idea of the riches of heaven and laying it all aside he
you know he left that to come and the incarnation and it's just the most
tremendous hymn and I can't find on YouTube any modern arrangement of it
because it's just so I don't think anybody sings it anymore. I've never
heard of it. Well there you go that's something for you to Google tonight.
But you know I grew up and listening to Amy Grant Christmas albums and I'm so
nostalgic for that. We're all cutting edge and he had change and
then a little bit of background Amy Grant. Anyway. And what from Amy Grant? What was on her
Christmas album? I've never been to Tennessee I'm not totally sure where it
is apart from America and she would sing another tender Tennessee Christmas
only Christmas for me and I always thought that at Christmas in Tennessee
must be like the bees knees of Christmas. I mean Christmas is very
nostalgic yes but I think we need to get a better thought about it. Well shall we
try? Yes let's go for it. So where do we end up? If I say to you Louise Reed what is the greatest
miracle in the Bible? Which would be in your top two or three or four? The
greatest miracle of Scripture. Where would you go? Oh that's a great question.
I'm going in a thousand different directions. I'm trying to pull my mind back.
Because there's a miracle like the major miracles of the
resurrection. There's a miracle of creation. There's a miracles of Jesus. But I
guess we would have to land on the incredible miracle of the incarnation. I
think that is probably the right answer. I mean the miracle of Christ became
flesh is probably the greatest most dynamic more than the raising from the
dead which in essence is a fairly normal thing for God who brings right from
the beginning of the book in Genesis order and life and creation and out of
chaos and nothingness. So life to the dead is actually his normal
practice you see that. But this word became flesh I think is the greatest
miracle which is why I think this season is the season of the greatest
requirement to contend for all and wonder and the refreshing of a thank-you
Jesus that you came. That's not a trite expression and here is why and we're
going into the bios of biology here if that's okay to do. If Mary had had
what some think of Mary the mother of Jesus had had a spontaneous conception
yes in other words it had been really nothing to do with the hand of God but
it had been a little bit of a push from a bit of the miraculous and she had
and conceived and you know by a bit of a shove of God and from the outside you
would have got a female child it would have replicated her because you do get
that occasion they're very odd and but the spontaneous concept of spontaneous
conception where where a woman's egg fertilizes itself but you always get a
female babies yeah so we know that this miracle of the incarnation is not that
oh well here's a spontaneous conception you know that it is not God just
appearing in her womb and having nothing to do with Mary because then Jesus
cannot be fully God and fully man he's only fully divine at that point so this
wonder is the God of all creation of all glory and power and might and majesty
and authority who fuses himself with very legitimately the egg of Mary so
that he is 100% male man and a hundred percent God that to me of how God
chooses to do that is the greatest miracle and the greatest wow the
greatest passion of God that he contains himself to that which is why I think in
Philippians you get what's written I'll put up actually the seven humiliations
of Christ and in in Philippians where we're asked and as I'm just scrolling
through through my phone to find the right to find the right and verse where
Jesus takes on and the very nature of a servant and and can you find the yeah
it's to first starting at verse 6 really and my computer is can you read it there
because my computer is in the NIV so it's Philippians 2 that we're in and
starting at verse 6 who being in very nature God did not consider equality
with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing there it is very
nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance
as a man he humbled himself so you get these concepts of making himself
nothing in the incarnation servant nature human likeness likeness being
finding the appearance of a man so releasing the same thing four times in
Philippians 2 verse 7 to 8 and the sense of the wonder of the and theologians
call it the humiliations of Christ but the humility of Christ in that moment to
become nothing and to to fuse his very DNA is very self is very supreme being
within that very lowly context and the oh my I need to come into wonder at your
absolute passion to restore and redeem me and to come chasing after me and the
sense of the containment forevermore that Jesus is in even in the heavenly
realms yes he did at the right hand of God the Father but not losing that
physical form and of course appearing to the disciples very much in Thomas you
know see the wounds in my hands and the wounds in my side and the utter utter
passion and humility and miracle of the incarnation is really what I think we
come to celebrate and to fall on our faces again at the John one scripture and
perhaps you have the John one scripture and we'll read it together amazing the
John one scripture in light of that yeah then it's not the and it's not the story
of the shepherds as marvelous that is or the wise men but it is the incarnation
that we go can I stop and pause and wonder let's read it yeah and it's John
1 14 the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us we have seen his glory
the glory of the one and only who came from the Father full of grace and truth
it is an extraordinary scripture I mean it's one that we should have on our lips
and yes and in our hearts it's it's extraordinary just when you're talking
there about the miracle of the the incarnation just the idea of the the
vastness of the wealth and glory of what God sits in and who he is the
magnificence of his character and his being the ultimate and to to reduce
himself mm-hmm to the size of an embryo yeah to be implanted in in female flesh
and and blood is in is just extraordinary yeah and to be carried for
nine months just like the rest of us so he identifies with us at every level you
know he came through a woman a natural birth process yeah into this world just
extort and that's only just a very very beginning of the all and the wonder for
me it's that kind of oh oh my you are the gods who is the author of all
speech or language learning how to talk you are the god of all movement and the
direction of the entire universe and you're learning to walk you are the god
who is the very source of all life and being and you're learning to chew food
yes and this incarnation story is not just what we said of the divine and the
human fusing in the womb of Mary but those first few years of infancy and
toddler where the contrast cannot be lost in us and the passionate love of
God for us and I think we are maybe a bit glib about God loves you but the
sheer overwhelming price that was paid not just on the cross but in the in the
substance of the incarnation being willing yes to leave everything to
identify with us at every level of growth and process of lot of early life
to take on the very nature of a man to take on the being in human appearance
and Philippians concepts it's an extraordinary level of identification
yes I mean who would have thought I mean if you were the the master of the
universe and you want to to bring redemption and save the souls of the
whole of the universe what would you choose me surely you would choose
conquering king surely would choose conquering and our concepts particularly
from the film world and from Hollywood would be very different but here is an
absolute counterculture extraordinary example of the lengths to which God is
done and it is that's only the beginning because then we have the extraordinary
level of the end of Philippians 4 of that pick that them that song it's
really a song in Philippians 4 wasn't it the early church used yes of his his
ascension and why all of this and I do think that's why John 1 which is the
passage that you read and you know the became flesh and dwelt among us you can
understand why by verse 12 John is saying or verse 11 sorry he came to that
which was his own but his own did not receive him because we have not
understood or have the ability to receive this level of passionate love
and humility because we don't think of a king in that way yeah and so on this
Christmas day is these broadcasts come out on Monday and Monday is Christmas
and day this year this sense of can we release back to you in the busyness and
the press of a season that draws sometimes the worst out of us can we
call you back for a moment into all and into wonder yeah and can we capture your
heart to say thank you for the incarnation the greatest miracle of all
time and perhaps the greatest miracle that will ever be achieved in all of
heaven and earth yeah the gods yes who became flesh do you want to just pray
that over the people today yeah sure Lord the first thing we say is we are in
awe and we are thankful beyond words and Lord as you came though as the word
became flesh and dwelt among us and we see your glory the glory of the one and
only son and Lord we right now gaze on your beauty and your preciousness and
even at this Christmas time we say will you go public with your beauty may the
manifestation of the magnificence and the excellence and the preeminence of
who you are be our portion and be our delight this Christmas and Lord as you
came full of grace and truth may grace and truth fill our homes with the
presence of God the presence of the the Holy Trinity among us may that be our
portion and our delight this Christmas in Jesus name so we cause the scales
wrongfully given in this season to come off your eyes yeah and we loose you into
awe wonder and gratitude in Jesus to Savior's name amen happy Christmas
thank you for joining us for another episode a Christmas blessing episode of
what the prophets say we'll see you next week which will be new year yes bye bye
join us for start the year right 2024 with Emma Stark Sam Robertson Jane
Hammond and other invited guests we're going to be diving into the deep waters
of what God is saying for this strategic and key year you will get strategy for
your life and be equipped to overcome in the days ahead join us in Glasgow in
Scotland for this landmark event