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At Bethlehem, God the Father was preparing a body for His Son to work through.

“Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me” (Heb. 10:5).

At Pentecost, God the Father was preparing a body for His Spirit to work through.

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19).

“And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16).

Because of this, Pentecost can never be repeated in the same sense that Bethlehem can never again happen.  It is, therefore, as unscriptural to have a “tarrying meeting” to pray down another Pentecost as it would be to have a meeting and plead for the shepherds and wise men to reappear.  The events occurring in Luke 2 and Acts 2 are forever in the past.

“Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice yielded up the ghost” (Matt. 27:50).

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:30).

These two English expressions, “yielded up” and “gave up” are from the same Greek phrase which could also be translated “to dismiss,” “to command to leave,” “to order a departure.”

What then, was the miracle of His death?  Simply this: By an act of sheer will, Jesus ordered His heart to stop beating, His blood to cease circulating, and His lungs to abstain from breathing.  We cannot accomplish this apart from the help of a gun, knife, poison, etc.  But the Savior commanded His physical life to end as easily as we might order our body to rise from a chair!

Thus, we see the supernatural involved concerning the three most important events in Jesus’ earthly life:

● He was born without the aid of a human father (Luke 1:30-35).
● He died by an act of the will.
● He was raised from the dead with a glorified body (Luke 24:33-40).

A recent U. S. census revealed that a majority of Americans used a shoe to drive a nail into a wall.  But why would they do that?  Surely no shoe designer or manufacturer whoever lived had this usage in mind.  Shoes are for walking, not pounding nails.  Actually the mystery deepens, as the same census also discovered 95% of those households polled had at least one or two hammers.  So why the first object and not the second?

The answer of course is simple indeed—a shoe was always available, the hammer was not!  So it is with the divine “nail driver.”  Whom does God use?  That one who is available.  Thus, the two greatest abilities are availability and dependability.

Most Bible students would agree that the greatest Old Testament prophet was Isaiah and the secret of his success?

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me” (Isa. 6:8).

God grant us more “shoe saints” in these last days!

A very significant event transpired during that first Easter Sunday afternoon following the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Luke records this for us:

“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem [about] threescore furlongs … And it came to pass, that, while they communed [together] and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them … And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24: 13, 15, 27).

Just what “things” did the Savior report?  It would have no doubt included the following:

 ● The offering up of Isaac (Gen. 22:1, 2, 10)

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten [son], Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God [was] able to raise [him] up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure” (Heb. 11:17-19).

 ● The Passover Lamb

In Exod. 12, a lamb was taken and killed, then its blood was sprinkled upon the door post.  That blood then saved the life of the oldest child in that household.  The New Testament says that Christ has become our Passover (1 Cor. 5:7).

 ● The giving of manna (Exod. 16:14, 15)

  Jesus would later say:

“I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:48-51).

 ● The smitten Rock (Exod. 17: 5, 6)

  Moses recorded this event:

“And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Exod. 17: 5, 6).

Paul explained its significance—

“And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4).

 ● The brazen serpent (Num. 21:5-9)
  
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-16).

Well, all these things happened to them in the past.  So how do they apply to us at the present hour?  In a word, Everything!  Note the following admonitions:

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left [us] of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it … Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:1, 16).