As I watch this … now for the 30th time … I can’t help but wonder what the prophet Handel might think if he could see it. How could he imagine this scene, half a world and 269 years away, as he worked day and night in the summer of 1741 to set God’s Word to music?

Who knows what God will do with the work He has given each of us to complete?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

As you may know, the prophet Handel is generally credited with writing Messiah, the Musical, but he actually plagiarized most of the lyrics. For example, he copied some of its most memorable lines from another prophet, a guy named Isaiah, who lived in the 700’s BC. For example, Isaiah wrote these lines:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa. 7:14)

For unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6)

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isa. 53:3-6)

Anybody can write about a person who has already lived and events that have already happened. The eternal beauty of Handel’s Messiah is that so much of it was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Only God can do that. Check this out.

(Note:  If cable TVcan put Star Trek re-runs on TV, FAB can put up re-runs here.)

As I watch this … for the 10th time … I can’t help but wonder what the prophet Handel might think if he could see it.  How could he imagine this scene, half a world and 269 years away, as he worked day and night in the summer of 1741 to set God’s Word to music?

Who knows what God will do with the work He has given each of us to complete?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

As you may know, the prophet Handel is generally credited with writing Messiah, the Musical, but he actually plagiarized most of the lyrics.  For example, he copied some of its most memorable lines from another prophet, a guy named Isaiah, who lived in the 700’s BC.  For example, Isaiah wrote these lines:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel.  (Isa. 7:14)

For unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  (Isa. 9:6)

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isa. 53:3-6)

Anybody can write about a person who has already lived and events that have already happened.  The eternal beauty of Handel’s Messiah is that so much of it was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.  Only God can do that.  Check this out.