The 3 Miracles
- The People
- The Parchments
- The Person
Rachmiel Frydland
© Messianic Literature Outreach
used by permission
Some people tell us that there are no miracles today and that everything can be explained on an historic and scientific basis. Perhaps you too have listened to such glib talk at one time or another. If so, we want to challenge you to consider the following three outstanding miracles still in existence - the People, the Parchments, and the Person.
THE PEOPLE
First, consider Israel, the Jewish people. God promised them permanent existence. No other people ever received such a promise: For the mountains may depart and the hills disappear, but even then I will remain loyal to you. My covenant of blessing will never be broken, says the LORD, who has mercy on you. (Isaiah 54:10)
Jewish people celebrate Passover in memory of the exodus from Egypt. God was faithful to His promise and in a supernatural way He preserved the Hebrews in the land of Egypt. Three thousand five hundred years have passed since the exodus and we can see the hand of God still working miracles in preserving the Jewish people and bringing them back to their ancient land. God is true and His Word is true.
There are many other places in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the brit hadasha (New Testament), which tell us for sure that Israel, the Jewish people, will survive until the end. See Jeremiah 31:35-37; Isaiah 49:14-16; Romans 11. Throughout the Word of God we are told that lsrael is here to stay. They will not disappear like other ancient nations, such as the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Moabites, and the Ammonites, and many others. Surely this is a great miracle, modern as well as ancient. To quote the historian, Dr. S. H. Kellogg, in The Everlasting Nation (London):
It is an undisputed fact that the position of the Jews among the nations is without a parallel or likeness in the history of mankind.... No nation can trace back its lineage by the clear light of reliable history so far as they.... The Jews are able, by authentic documents, to follow back their history to a period more distant from the beginning of our era than the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah antedates the present time.
Dr. Kellogg, after recounting the marvelous history of the Jewish people in their own land, goes on to say,
But if the history of the Jews is remarkable so long as they remained in their own land, it is much more so since they have been an exiled nation. Throughout this whole time (until 1948) they have had no land that they could call their own, no universal bond of government; they have been exposed to climatic and to social influences the most diverse and often hurtful.... In a word, then, there is no influence which might be supposed to tend to utter extinction of a people, which has not been brought to bear upon them with peculiar power, and that for centuries, as upon no other nation in history, and yet here they are among us today, with their national self-consciousness not in the least abated by this age-long experience of exile, scattering and persecution.
Indeed, the whole history of Israel and the Jewish people, is a continuous miraculous history. Recent developments in the Middle East, and the fact that lsrael was not swallowed up by the overwhelming resources and numbers of its Arab neighbors, is renewed proof, to the Jew and Christian alike, that God by His miraculous power is able to keep His people as a nation:
Indeed, he who watches over Israel never tires and never sleeps. The LORD himself watches over you! The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.(Psalm 121:4,5)
THE PARCHMENTS
Second, consider the Parchments upon which the Hebrew Scriptures are still written and read in the synagogues. The passages of the Hebrew Bible which are worn in the phylacteries are also carefully copied by scribes on parchments and so are the two passages from the Bible which are put in the Mezuzah: beginning with, "Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one..." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). The parchment is then folded and placed in a box and attached to the doorpost.
A few years ago the whole world became excited because a number of parchment scrolls were found by a Bedouin shepherd in the Judean hills near the Dead Sea. The most important of these was the entire book of the prophet Isaiah from the Hebrew Scriptures. These parchments finally came into the possession of Israel and are now on display in the University of Jerusalem.
How wonderful it is to know that out of these scrolls thousands of years ago, our Jewish people were able to read the glorious prophecies from the Word of God concerning Israel and the Person of the promised Messiah! Among the discovered parchment scrolls there were also parts of almost every book of the Hebrew Scriptures and also of the New Testament.
Today these parchments have been translated and printed in a thousand languages, and Bible publishers have printed translations in many more languages. Vast numbers of books printed on all kinds of subjects go out of date during their first year; yet these parchment scrolls have survived in spite of every human effort to destroy them. Their contents are still precious to millions of people, both Jews and Gentiles. Thousands of the best scholars and linguists have dedicated their lives to making this book, the Bible, available to every one.
In the two-thousand-year-old parchment scroll of Isaiah recently discovered, you who are reading these words will find the following;
The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. (Isaiah 55:10,11)
The New Testament contains the same prediction in different words, namely, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
How else can the miraculous nature of these historical parchments be explained? The Bible, God's Word, includes the New Testament containing the words of Jesus the Messiah, is still loved and is available in millions of copies everywhere.
THE PERSON
Third, consider the Person-the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The Hebrew Scriptures containing the book of the Prophet Isaiah, written some seven hundred years before the Lord Jesus was born, describes Messiah Jesus in the following manner:
Look at my servant, whom I strengthen. He is my chosen one, and I am pleased with him. I have put my Spirit upon him. He will reveal justice to the nations. He will be gentle-- he will not shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush those who are weak or quench the smallest hope. He will bring full justice to all who have been wronged. He will not stop until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth. Even distant lands beyond the sea will wait for his instruction (Torah - law). (Isaiah 42: 1-4)
Try in vain to explain this Person by historical developments or natural science! It would be impossible. This miraculous servant is above history and science. He has been chosen by almost the whole world to be the dividing point in history. He entered this world born of a Jewish virgin, lived and died as a sacrifice for the sins of the world that whosoever believes on Him should not have to pay the penalty for sin but may find forgiveness in the atonement of our Messiah.
Moreover, this miraculous Person rose from the dead; and some thirty years after, it was reported that He had been seen alive by more than five hundred persons most of whom were still living at the time of the report. Years later, a Jew of much prominence in Jerusalem, not only persecuted the followers of Jesus in that city but journeyed to Damascus to persecute the Christian Jews of that city also. He was suddenly stopped on the road by a vision of the Lord Jesus and a voice from heaven saying to him, "Why do you persecute me?" Looking up, he saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He came to believe and from that moment to the end of his life, he lived only for the One he had previously persecuted.
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