Miracles and Signs

address a different topic and again these are topics that certainly are in the book by Sproul on essentials of the

Christian faith and I think it's good from time to time to pick up on different subjects as we can.

But again this morning talk about miracles and I think that's a subject that's not too often uh spoken about and and perhaps there's some some good reasons for it and some um is almost in my mind some of it is almost a a way of staying back from uh getting into discussions about are miracles still for today and and things like that so um as we do this this morning and I put the scriptures on the board we're gonna look at a bunch of scriptures about miracles and just to try to consider it and so um as we start let me say this and and I'm gonna follow uh

Sproul's outline uh this morning pretty much because I thought it was really good especially on this topic and so um here's what he says about miracles he says that miracles um is something outside the normal course of nature agree yeah

I mean yeah however he then goes on and he qualifies that and I and I think in a in a good way where he says um there's three different types of miracles or there's three different ways in which we are to understand miracles and I want to just consider that for a moment he says this this is what he was he was laying out he said first of all when you think of a miracle you think of something that is outside the course of nature but he also says it could be uh something that's common but an impressive event that's the way he worded it so when you think about it um you we would say the birth of a baby is a miracle agree yeah a birth of of a baby is is is so it's common it happens over and over again but it's still such a impressive event that many people will consider that as a miracle and certainly

I would agree to that um you know sometimes people will if you remember and I was thinking about this yesterday if you remember back

I think it was 1980 when the U .S. hockey team beat the

Russians in the Olympics and you remember what that was called it was called a miracle on ice and it was a it's a common event people play hockey all the time but it was the reality that it was the way it turned out people termed it as as if it was a miracle and so when you think about that or you could have a a spectacular catch in football or you know you name all the different things that you think about and they're common events and yet there is something out of the ordinary or impressive about it so that's one way he lays out this thought of miracles then he said this he said that there's a second one and that's when um let's say through an act of providence um things take place that have really no other explanation attached to them except that it's a miracle he brought up the fact of um when the star appeared in the east and the men saw the star appearing in the east which led them to Bethlehem to find a baby in the manger and he's he was saying that if you think about that you think about how times providence seems to line up in such a way that it's such a it's of such magnitude that people will consider it a miracle um and i was thinking and maybe you'll agree like let's just say and we've read about all the times a plane crashes and there's 200 people on board and one person survives and people will say it's a miracle that anyone lived and as you think about it in in in a real sense is that not

God's providence at work is that not God um through the the outworking of things bringing to pass his purpose and again that is something that is within the realm of what people might call normal planes fly unfortunately planes crash and and yet in that working of it it is it is considered as a miracle and then he then he says this and certainly i think this is the one that we probably pay the most attention to is when

God acts against nature when God acts against nature and we'll spend some time on that because if you think about it um the gospels and the book of acts and many other places and we're going to look at all these scriptures hopefully you have time we see things that are against nature things that would not normally take place if God didn't intervene in a if you will in a miraculous way and so um i thought that was a pretty good way of of kind of dividing up different aspects of it um what's interesting to me and well let's just do it this way let's go to hebrews chapter two i'm going to read two scriptures because these are um really right on point concerning the subject that we're talking about so hebrews chapter two and i'm just going to read the first four verses of chapter two therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest we drift away for if the word spoken through angels proves steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at first began to be spoken by the lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him and then he says this god also bearing witness both with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the holy spirit according to his own let's just stop for a second and think about there are basically two words that are used in the original language for miracles and at times interchangeable with signs and the two words are dunamis right which is what paul says in romans chapter one he says the gospel is the what is the power of god and so in one in many places as we read about miracles we'll see this word dunamis translated and it really speaks about power and then there's another word and i probably won't say it right but it's semion and it really talks about a sign something that is given in a in a miraculous kind of way to bear witness and and as i looked through it and found where wherever a miracle was in in the new testament in particular and also the word signs that they are used interchangeably so when you think about that what we're talking about is the the power of god in a display that is unmatched unparalleled in the normal nature of things and so thinking about that and thinking about what the word means or how the words are used and then there's there's also what's interesting in in this it talks about signs and wonders and various miracles and and the one the word wonders is is a completely different word so so but what i am trying to say is that when you talk about miracles or signs they are used interchangeably and the context kind of bears out which word is used at a particular point so when you think about it and you you think about the words that are used let's just say when jesus turned the water into wine would we not agree that that was an absolute miracle against nature right and and it was in that sense a sign and people noticed that sign but it was something that stood out and as you you think about it well i was going to wait a few minutes but let me ask how many of us if we thought about it given those three different definitions that Sproul brought up about one that either a miracle is a is a common event but it's it's in such an impressive way that we consider it as a miracle or when god works in providence at a let's say an opportune time and many times that is a miracle or when god works against nature so how many of us could ever say or can say that we've witnessed a miracle and and it could be in any one of those three categories something that's normal something that's it it's normal but it's impressive something that in it just seems as an act of divine providence or something that is outside the realm if you will like the water being turned into wine area my life experiences a few months ago i mean i was just um pray tell what was your miracle brother well let's see months ago i mean when i left set free i was like okay where i'm gonna go next from here i'm in this halfway house now right and nobody had told me this told me about this place you know i didn't know nobody told me this place you know i would just all i do all i do all i do is say talk this guy named james gandy you know you know and i've heard his name before but like i know him and so i just i did that right and you know i've got to where i am now now i'm working and i was going to stay you know i've been able to like you know okay so so as you say that now what what category would you feel comfortable putting that in would you say for me right okay so that would be an outworking of but it was is of such an impressive nature that you would consider it as a miracle yeah right um i would guess that we all have something that has taken place through the providence of god that we would say you know what this this had to have been uh the outworking of a miracle in i don't know if you want to relate your miracle or one of the miracles that you which one i have a thousand yeah i know my wife always tells me it's a miracle i'm still alive but the one when we went to oklahoma so we went to we went to oklahoma um visit my daughter and my son -in -law he was in the navy he was based in oklahoma and we decided to go catfishing because me and him loved to fish so we made all our preparations and and we took like this hour -long ride and we wound up underneath the bridge at some creek um in the middle of podunk or maybe it was east podunk i don't know what where we were but anyway um as we got out and we started to walk to where we were gonna fish underneath the bridge right so it's an underpass we started to notice weird things like there were syringes on the ground and there was some some kind of satanic stuff yeah it was satanic uh almost looked like things in the ground written on the ground whatever it was and so we began to get now honestly and i know because i sensed it too began to get like an eerie kind of feeling about it all next thing you know and honestly still to this date i don't know how it happened next thing you know there's a an older black man in a in overalls and he comes walking out of nowhere i mean literally he would he was there yeah and he said to us if i were you i would get out of here because this is not a place to be and so we started talking between us and next thing you know he's gone i mean he was literally gone i don't know where he came from right baby don't know where he came from or where he went nevertheless we took his advice and we got out of there until and still to this day i think of it i know uh candy does and and even my son -in -law and my daughter that this almost seemed like a miracle that this man just appeared out of nowhere and told us gave us good advice and we got the heck out of there so i would say that all of us have something in our lives that we could point to or maybe like you say many things that we could point to where we would say it was an absolute miracle i just mentioned one other me and my son went fishing at yugana park and the current really moves fast in there and my son the fireman he's he's got he's a rescue swimmer and all the other things but anyway he went out in a kayak he was going to paddle out and and i was on the shore because i was i want i'm not doing that and next thing you know all of a sudden his kayak turned over and he's being swept out by the current and i mean fast have you ever been to yugana park when that tide goes out i mean it's a mover so i got really panicky because i thought i was going to lose him because he had he was fully dressed too and and so his clothes and shoes and everything and he started to go he got to the mouth almost to the mouth of the river and next thing you know there's a boat and and honestly i gotta say there's this boat that came out of nowhere just sitting on the side he went got my son brought him back to where we were and then the boat disappeared i mean and i'm gonna say that and my son will testify that that was this guy came out we didn't have any idea that there would be a boat there and and it was a bit away like i said but somehow that guy got him brought him brought his kayak and disappeared and so i again i i say these things because i think we all would have to admit there are many things in life that would appear as if we've been um we've experienced a miracle agree i think sometimes we're afraid to say that because i agree because we're so everybody's voodoo and you know so we're afraid to actually pick up on it you know but it happens all the time everywhere yeah and i know uh yeah this kind of debate especially in our you know sect of christianity and then on the reformed circle sect it does not still do miracles you know that's like a that's like a common debate among sure sure and i think to your point and you just said is we tend to be hesitant um because of that because we don't want to get into that that bucket of you know you know i sat on my bed and jesus was sitting there and things like that and there are many who abuse that truth right but i think it is a truth now does i think sometimes we try to put god in a box by saying he doesn't do miracles and we talked about this we had this in the academy the rainbow in the sky is a miracle absolutely yes but we just oh that's pretty yeah and it's an act of providence right and it's it's common but it's not so common that because there was one the other day i actually took a picture of it it was it was drizzled a little bit and i but we have either a tendency to avoid it totally because we're afraid of where it might lead in people's minds or to some it's it's such a everyday event that it it's almost like it must be so sometimes we put box god in a box and say he can't or he won't or he always does and if you don't experience a miracle it's only because of you know a host of different reasons yeah so it's uh it's an interesting interesting topic and as you survey the scriptures in the in the old testament and in the new testament particularly countless times there are these miracles and signs and wonders that take place and and you think about the ministry of elijah or elisha they were great prophets used by god and particularly them among others certainly when moses went to egypt right those were miraculous workings of god's power but when you think about elisha and elijah they were very um they were greatly used by god and a lot of what took place in their life was what accompanied with a miracle a sign a wonder a power and and that's why when you think about the words that they used interchangeably um whether it is just we would just say it's power um or it is an absolute working against nature either way i think it becomes something that um you and i can look at and we could say that we have had uh to some degree some personal experience with miracles and if we really were to think about it the greatest miracle will at least to me greatest miracle will is what the new birth right is the new birth yeah and and what comes out of the resurrection that god would take a dead sinner and make him alive and certainly we could read like in ezekiel 37 right where the dead bones remember the whole thing with the dead bones and can the bones live and lord you know if they can live and and and all those things but but there also is this outworking of um signs and wonders and again much of the ministry of jesus was accompanied by these impressive acts many of them against nature right but what would be what would have been the purpose of those miracles though well at least in the case of the