The Miracle of the Messenger

When we refer to something as a “miracle” or a “mystery”, the assumed default position of some people to whom we speak, often filters out or questions attributing to God what cannot be explained by scientific or natural laws. That is somewhat understandable.

If someone is repeatedly told someone does not exist or something is not true, that frame of reference will need to be corrected - water/lake to the south - Essex County/North shore of Lake Erie - northern segment of Niagara Region the opposite.

Whatever we are told with reference to God filters, enhancing or impeding what we are told.

Some of these filters would gently remove truth - Sunday morning, Dec 7, 1941, at 8:00 am, the Japanese Imperial repeatedly bombed and torpedoed the American Pacific Fleet. In a military sense the attack was unprovoked. 2,403 service members were killed. 1,178 were wounded. 6 ships were sunk or destroyed. 169 Air Force and Army Air Corps planes were destroyed. SADLY, SOME WHO WOULD REWRITE JAPANESE HISTORY WOULD MAKE NO REFERENCE TO THAT OR OTHER ATROCITIES.

Those are not the only atrocities that some would deny. Deny of truth does not negate truth.

NEITHER DOES SHORT TERM SILENCE NEGATE TRUTH. IN SOME CASE A SHORT TERM TERM SILENCE FORCES US TO LISTEN MORE CAREFULLY.

Over these next weeks we will allow the Scriptures to sharpen our hearing with regard to “The Miracles of Christmas”.

We need to remember that our ultimate focus must be the word. We might quote definitions from the Oxford or Webster’ dictionaries, the listener’s default position will still initially filter out any “perceived faulty” to that which is unusual, explicable by nature or science as being explainable or caused by the power and intervention of God.

Without discounting the term miracles, we can also refer to the “mysteries” of Christmas, the reason being the Scriptures sometimes refer to the Gospel and Christ as a “mystery hidden for the ages and generations but now revealed to His saints.” (Col 1:26)

The “Miracle of the Messenger”

God spoke and still speaks! (Heb. 1:1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13)

Whatever others might have said or been saying, the writer of Hebrews was clear. Up until that point God had not been silent. He had been speaking in ways to their fathers.

Contrary to what some believe and teach,

Hebrews: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Man’s Ways to God

Man lives in a natural “box,” which encloses him within its walls of time and space. Outside of this box is the supernatural, and somewhere deep inside himself man knows it is out there. But in himself he does not know anything certain about it

It was Bill Bright referenced Pascal whose original text “Pensees” does not have that phrase. So it’s more of a paraphrase.

Jul 21 '16 at 18:13 "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ." (Pascal, quoted in: W. Bright, Jesus and the Intellectual, Campus Crusade for Christ International, Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino, CA, 1968.)”

A couple of Scriptures provide better indirect contexts.

Ecclesiastes 3:10–12 ESV

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;

Acts 17:22–27 ESV

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

Perhaps that is what St Augustus of Hippo had in mind when he wrote in his “Confessions”,

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Long ago over about 1,800 years - Job about 2,200 BC to Malachi & Nehemiah both about 400 BC - 400 years of comparative silence

To our fathers - by the prophets

To us - by His Son - in these last days

Heir of all things - appointed

Through whom - created the world

Radiance of the the glory of God

Exact imprint of His nature

Upholds the universe by the word of His power

Sitting at the right hand of the majesty on high

After making purification for sin

His excellent inherited name - MY SON