Miracles within miracles!
First things first. Why are so many miracles recorded in the Scriptures? For us to be awed by the all-powerful ways of Almighty God and spontaneously praise Him in the spirit of adoration! The very purpose of our Creation is to worship Him (the very first declaration in Westminster Catechism, which encapsulates Christian faith best, testifies to this fact). Oh yes, reading about miracles also reinforces our faith in Him, to deliver us from our difficulties. Now permit me to sidetrack just a bit and visit the World of tennis or more precisely that of Davis cup!
Davis cup? Oh that poor country cousin of the Grand Slams, which the top stars usually shun? Whatever way one may view this team competition, I am a great fan of it for the simple reason, computer rankings go haywire once the DC tie begins! With patriotism ruling the roost, we see “many upsets” in this competition, where a lower ranked player (high on patriotic adrenaline) often gets the better of a higher ranked one. Yet another fascinating aspect of Davis cup competition is that it packages and presents hi-octane CONTESTS WITHIN CONTESTS. Confused? Let me explain.
While Davis cup competition primarily pits a country against a country, essentially within this broad contest, what keeps the spectators engaged is a gripping contest within a contest of two players representing their national flags. Let’s take the recent Davis cup final between Spain and Argentina for example. Even as an engaging contest was on between TWO COUNTRIES, there was that EXCITING CONTEST WITHIN A CONTEST between two baseline sluggers-Nadal and Del Porto. These two Grand slam champions going toe-to-toe provided for some lip-smacking stuff for many a tennis buff. Old timers would also nostalgically recall some classic DC contests…notably the 6-hour marathon featuring Becker and McEnroe in a 1987 tie between Germany and USA or the Wilander, McEnroe epic (also of 6 hrs) in a 1982 contest between Sweden and USA. All these bring me to the like sounding spiritual theme …“MIRACLES WITHIN MIRACLES” (high time some readers might say).
A bit dazed once again? Permit me to clarify at the outset before expounding this subject, further. We always praise God for many an awe-inspiring miracle in the Bible but have we praised Him for some “silent” miracles within “thundering” miracles. Not so much for felling a Goliath, as for silently “directing” the stone slung by the shepherd boy to its target!
In this sermon, I want bring to the fore three such extra-ordinary Biblical accounts under the following subheadings
1. Gosh (en)! What a protected land without walls!
2. Standing tall on a crumbling Wall!
3. Precision bombing!
Gosh(en)! What a protected land without walls!
Goshen was the name of the district in which the Jews were penned (like sheep in a pen) in Egypt during the times of Moses. Gosh! What a land within Egypt! Is how any first time Bible reader would react on repeatedly coming across God’s special protection of his special people living there, awaiting deliverance from slavery. Now once again, permit me to visit the World of sports (boxing ring to be precise, this time) to drive home a point (I never tire of reiterating the fact that God’s Word by creative study needs to be enjoyed thoroughly).
Normally, in a boxing bout, before the killer blow arrives there are a few “softening blows” which are anything but soft, setting up the stage for the final coup de grace. After that the scene of the victor standing triumphantly beside the vanquished lying limp in the canvas would invariably emerge. The fact of the matter is that the softening blows are just as important as the knockout punch. Ditto treatment of cancer; the preceding cycles of chemotherapy to root out the dreaded disease are just as vital as the final long session.
The Book of Exodus (Chapters 7-10) records a series of “Divine softening punches” unleashed on the hard-hearted Pharoah, before the knock-out punch in the form of killing of the eldest offspring (Chapters 11-12) arrived. God “who donned the gloves” and fought on the “corner” of His unarmed chosen ones’ (they obtained their independence without as much as raising their little finger against their oppressors) in the Egyptian soil unleashed one softening blow after another on the stubborn tyrant, who was hell bent on not releasing Jacob’s descendents from the clutches of slavery. One such softening blow that preceded the knockout punch was the biggest hailstorm in Egyptian history that hit the Nation of Pyramids (Exodus 9:23-26). I am picking out and laying special emphasis on this miracle in the series of miracles that occurred before and after it only to bring home the fact that “silent miracles” do occur alongside “blaring” ones! While doubtless, we are awed by God’s power in this miracle of whipping up a devastating hailstorm that leveled all of Egypt, what about a silent miracle, which accompanied this boisterous thunder, and lighting miracle? Verse 26 records pointedly “ The only spot in all Egypt without hail that day was the land of Goshen where the people of Israel lived”. Talk of an invisible wall of protection around the land of Goshen, which had no physical walls rising to the skies…
While, we may have praised God for the awe-inspiring miracle of unleashing rip-roaring storm upon the cruel despot have we ever praised Him for this “silent” miracle within the “thunderous” one?
Speaking of storms, there is that story of a storm of great intensity hitting the high seas. It was so severe that the giant waves tossed the big ships about like paper cups in a big bowl of water. A few days after surviving the tumultuous ordeal, a captain of a ship was in a sailors’ party. When he related this frightening, ‘brush-with-death experience’ with one of his friends, who had been in a submarine at almost the same place during the storm, the latter is said to have calmly quipped, "What storm"? Several hundred feet below the raging waves, he and his crew in a submarine had been in a serene world of their own. A Jew of Moses’ times in the City of Goshen in Egypt waiting for “Divine liberation” from the tyrannical Pharoah’s yoke might well have asked the question “What storm” to his Egyptian acquaintance, when informed about the biggest hailstorm to have come upon the Egyptian soil!
As stated before in this essay, we see repeatedly the pattern of God’s people being insulated in the land of Goshen amidst God-ordained calamities in the Book of Exodus. Before the hailstorm arrived, do we not see a similar pattern in the miracle of “swarm of flies” infesting the land or the plague on livestock (Exo 8,9). Later on, was there not normal light in Goshen even as night like pitch darkness pervaded rest of Egypt, -Exo10: 21-23- and eventually even the case of death angel visiting only the Egyptian homes on the Passover night was an example of preservation of His chosen ones’ in the midst of devastation.
Standing tall on a crumbling Wall!
If Goshen without a wall was safe in God’s hands, then the city of Jericho despite a robust wall around it was hapless before the marauding Joshua’s army (Numbers 14:9), which brings us to the Rahab story …to ponder awhile on yet another miracle, not often talked about. Frankly, the Rahab’s daring faith and her subsequent rescue and rehabilitation story (Joshua 2 and 6) never ceases to surprise the Biblical scholars. The more one digs into that, more are the insights representing a rare treasure, waiting to be revealed.
So as the Jericho wall miraculously fell (Joshua 6:20), where was Rahab? Since she knew going outside her house at the time of conquest would be a breach of the covenant, she had entered into with the spies (Joshua 2:17-21), she with her relatives shepherded into the safety of the house were ensconced therein. Oh yes, there was a scarlet robe tied to the window, hanging outside. At this moment, we can well imagine she with all her relatives waiting with bated breath for the Jericho wall to collapse or be breached with battering rams and the city to be conquered. In case, we have forgotten, where was her house? ON THE WALL!!! Look once again, at her amazing faith. Stretching our imagination a bit, we can well visualize her relatives whispering into her ears, the danger of remaining inside a house with a shaky foundation, but Praise God for her unshakable faith at that time, even as she held fast to her oath of staying put inside her house. By faith she knew that while the entire wall or a section of it surrounding the Jericho city would collapse, that portion of it on which her house rested wouldn’t. That’s exactly what happened. Even as that of others like Jericho wall itself collapsed like a pack of cards, her house as though in the safety of His palm, remained untouched by the rumble all around! Hallelujah!
If felling of Jericho wall-again not a finger of his people of His people needed to be raised- was a mighty miracle, then that of Rahab’s house standing tall amidst ruins was the very definition of a miracle within a miracle. There it
stood symbolic, as it were, of her unshakeable faith, even as that of her city dwellers very much like their relationship with the Lord lay in ruins.
Even as we praise God on reading the account of a crumbled Jericho wall, let’s not forget to praise Him for Rahab’s house, which stood tall amidst ruins!
Precision bombing!
Joshua Chapter 10 records one of the most amazing Divine interventions ever in human history when a battle was fought as a part of greater war “the Conquest of Canaan (for understanding the nuances of the subject “Conquest of Canaan” better you may also click on this link http://www.jandsmministries.com/message_jan15_08.asp). NO, NO, here at this stage, I neither intend to focus upon the event of sun and moon stopping in their tracks, consequent to Joshua’s prayers (verses 12-15) nor do I desire to focus exclusively here about the enemies dying on account of the hailstorm (verse 11) which God unleashed upon the fleeing army. In the midst of these greater miracles’, I want to focus upon a “silent miracle” that happened alongside them.
Also lets get straight some of the geo-historical aspects of this miracle, which happened when Joshua and his men were engaged in a battle with five Canaanite kings (Joshua 10:3-11). Close to the scene of the battle at Gibeon was, Upper Beth-horon—about ten miles distant, and approached by a gradual ascent through a long and precipitous ravine. This was the first stage of the flight of the enemy forces, who realized as the battle progressed that they were no match to Divinely strengthened Joshua’s army. The fugitives had crossed the high ridge of Upper Beth-horon, and were in full flight down the descent to Beth-horon the Nether. The road between the two places is so rocky and rugged that there is apath made by means of steps cut in the rock. Down this pass Joshua continued his victorious rout. Here it was that the Lord interposed, assisting His people by means of a storm, which, having been probably gathering all day, burst with such irresistible fury, that "they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword." Just as it is recorded in Job 38:22-23, sometimes God uses hailstorm to deadly effect in wars.
The Oriental hailstorm is a terrific agent; the hailstones are masses of ice, large as walnuts, and sometimes as two fists; their prodigious size, and the violence with which they fall, make them always very injurious to property, and often fatal to life. So even as these “ natural bombs” from the skies were raining upon the fleeing army, has it ever occurred to us, where were Joshua and his men? Chasing their enemies, they were certainly not faraway! Now did these “Heavenly bombs” fall upon them? NO! Welcome to the age of precision bombing! And those of us who think that precision bombing with guided missiles is a modern-day invention would do well to revise our opinions. Doesn’t this miracle of hailstorm “not falling” upon the chasing Joshua’s army awe us, as much as the miracle of it precisely hitting the scampering foes does? A case of yet another miracle within a miracle! Hallelujah!
By now the readers would have gauged the underlying principle behind all of these miracles. The one of God’s faithful preservation of the faithful ones’ amidst full-scale destruction! Psalmist also shares this sentiment in Psalm 91:7-8. What is the lesson these miracles’ (more than one, as though to underscore a point) hold for modern-day Christians living oh-so-close to II Coming and subsequent tribulation? Having come under His saving grace, our present difficulties (varying in degree from person to person) on Earth aside, we as a Church are guaranteed to be raptured, as such taken away from a much more horrendous tribulation time ahead (Rev 3:10)! As a Bible teacher taking special classes’ on the Book of Revelation, I shudder sometimes, at the very thought of terrible woes awaiting the disobedient world. A detailed study of tribulation woes (Rev 6-19) would also reveal their similarity to the Egyptian woes. For one thing in both the cases it was just not one woe but a series of them. Also do not we see both of them gradually growing up in intensity? That is the second similarity. Then what about their impact on the wicked? Again we notice a similarity. Pharoah did not repent till the end and likewise nor would the wicked during the Tribulation time (Rev 9:20-21, 16:11). No wonder our God is said to be an unchanging God (Heb 13:8). Not only are His ways of dealing with the wicked still the same (intensity of punishment always increases gradually) but more importantly He is just as unchanging when it comes to preserving His faithful ones’ in the midst of calamities. If He has insulated His chosen ones from troubles in the past, will He not keep up His promise of keeping us insulated from the fiery times ahead? Is this not one more reason to praise our glorious Savior God?
HALLELUJAH…more loudly please. What price any theology, which doesn’t end with doxology!
Suresh Manoharan
www.jandsmministries.com
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