65. Christmas Day from the Prophets!

0:00 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.

0:49 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...

2:19 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?

3:01 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.

4:13 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.

5:20 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

6:51 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

8:26 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

9:58 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

11:29 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

13:04 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

14:36 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

16:09 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

17:44 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