Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Perhaps someone at your office, school, or home has mocked you for believing that the miracles in Scripture are true. Maybe you've been told, even by other Christians, that science does not support the miraculous events that we read about in the Bible. So how do you answer those critics? How should you think about miracles?
Do they harm the credibility of Scripture, or do they support it? Consider those questions with John MacArthur today as he continues his compelling study titled, Is the Bible Reliable? And now here's John MacArthur. Now what is a miracle? We have to start somewhere.
Let's start there. What is a miracle? Miracles are events in the external world wrought by the power of God. A miracle is God stepping into the universe, setting aside the normal laws of nature to do a super nature act. The Bible describes miracles usually, especially in the New Testament, in three terms, signs, wonders, and mighty works. And therein you have the definition of miracles, really.
They were mighty works to create wonder, to act as a sign. Now I want to take you to the first miracle that God ever did in relation to man and it's in Genesis chapter 1. And we're going to look at miracles that affected all men, miracles that affected nations, and miracles that affected individuals, just for some categories. Now first miracle, here it comes, verse 1.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. That's a miracle, the miracle of creation, the first miracle. Let me take you to a second miracle. Look in your Bible, Genesis 6. In Genesis 6 and 7 you have a second great miracle in the book of the Law, Pentateuch, and that's the Flood. Now folks, that's a miracle. God performed a wonder.
Go to chapter 7, we'll look for just a minute. The Lord said to Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. It was one thing to build the ark, you know, and keep saying I know God is in this, but then when they all went in and sat there, that's another act of faith, I suppose. Of every clean beast thou shall take to thee by his sevens, the male and his female, and beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female fowls. And he tells them about all these animals.
And some people say, oh, that is so ridiculous. How is this guy going to herd these animals? How do the animals know whether they're male or female?
How do they determine who gets to go and who gets drowned? You know, all these ridiculous things. Listen, that's no problem for the God who made those animals. God has a lot less trouble with animals than He does with people. There's an interesting statement, I think it's Isaiah 1.3, it says, the ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib, but Israel doesn't know me.
My people don't understand. Don't knock the animals. God just organized the animals. They all went in there and an incredible thing happened.
God just broke up everything. Verse 11, God broke up the great deep, water just surged up and the windows of heaven and so forth, the firmament around the earth broke and came down to the earth. The vapor was ended and that's why after the flood, life was immediately shortened because the vapor that protected from the sun's rays was eliminated.
And a tremendous flood took place, 40 days of rain and 150 days of water. And that's where you get sedimentary rock and that's where you get the fossils. They aren't fossils from all different kinds of ages. They're just things that all kind of zapped together in the flood. You don't need great million year ice ages to form various things. All you need is one super flood. And the very existence of fossils proves catastrophism.
Rhodes, Zim and Schaeffer who have written a book on fossils, again they're unbelievers, say to become fossilized a plant or animal must usually have had hard parts such as bone, shell or wood and it must be buried quickly to prevent decay and it must be undisturbed throughout long periods. It must be buried quickly, rapid catastrophe. This is a miracle. This is a miracle of flood that covered the entire world. You say, what makes you believe it covered the world? Well, the very facts that it couldn't cover Mount Ararat if water seeks its own level unless it covered everything else. Plus it says in 2 Peter 3.5, for this they willingly are ignorant of that by the Word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water by which the world that then was, was overflowed with water. The world was overflowed with water, says Peter. It's a miracle.
Let God be God. Another miracle, Genesis 11, and the whole earth was one language and one speech. It came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there.
It's all right to have a city there, I guess. And they said to one another, come, let's take brick and burn the brick and make stones and slime to put it all together and let's build a city and a tower whose top shall reach to heaven. And here they got a little carried away. They're going to build a ziggurat. This is a pagan tower. They're going to worship a false god, self-glorification, idolatry.
So the Lord did an interesting thing. Verse 6, the Lord said, Behold, the people are one and they of all one language and this they begin to do and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. Come let us go down and there confound their language.
This is a little inter-trinitarian conversation, come let us go down. And confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there upon the face of all the earth and they ceased building the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel. And of course the word comes from a Hebrew word meaning to confuse. The Lord confounded the language of all the earth. And that's where languages came from. God just scattered everybody. God said, I'll break up their idolatry, I'll scatter them all over the world and they all speak different languages and nobody will be able to get together on anything. That's a miracle.
But you know something? What's exciting about that miracle is it's a very clear and very lucid and very responsible explanation of where languages came from. I mean if there wasn't anything like that, they would all have started out with an original language and it would have kind of just been very variations and so forth and so on and it wouldn't have been much different anywhere, but all of a sudden bang, historically there's people all over everywhere speaking very different languages. So some miracles affected everybody. They affect us, all of those. Creation affected us, here we are. The Flood affected us, we're living in the earth that withstood that flood. And Babel affected us, we speak English.
Let me take you a step further. Second thing, miracles that affected nations. And this is just to give you a look at it. Some miracles affected nations and just in the time of Moses you could have 25 of these. But let me go to Exodus 14 and let's look at the miracle of the Red Sea. Remember that children of Israel escaped from Egypt and Pharaoh was chasing them. And believe me, folks, if there's any doubt about this miracle, there were an awful lot of witnesses, a whole nation of them.
Some people say as many as three million people. Plenty of witnesses. Here is again a visible miracle with no other explanation than that it is miraculous and it reveals God as the Savior. It has a divine purpose. It shows God as Savior. Creation revealed God as Creator. The Flood revealed God as Savior. Babel revealed God as Judge. All of them, a divine end, a divine purpose pointing to God. And here the crossing of the Red Sea again reveals God as Deliverer and Judge, for He delivers Israel and judges the Egyptians.
Now there have always been people who criticize this miracle. Let's look at verse 13 and start there. Moses said to the people, "'Fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you today.
For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace.' And the Lord said to Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me?
Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. But lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea." He's right at the sea.
Pharaoh's at the back pressing. He's got nowhere to go but to the sea. He says, how are we going to get there? And the Lord says, just put your stick out there and the thing will divide and you can walk through on dry land. "'And behold, I'll harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall follow them.
And I'll get me honor over Pharaoh and over all his hosts, over his chariots, over his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.'" Now here God again is revealing Himself. He is doing a miracle to reveal that He is God. And believe me, there must have been some real talk going on back there in the capital of Egypt when they realized that their whole army was drowned.
After they had had all the plagues that had revealed God, they were probably pretty well convinced that that God was truly God. The angel of God who went before the camp of Israel, verse 19, removed and went behind them and the pillar of cloud went from before their face and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel and it was a cloud and darkness to them but it gave light by night to these so that the one came not near the other all night. God just plopped the Shekinah glory between the Egyptians and the Israelites so the Israelites could have a comfortable night.
Well you know what happened. Verse 21, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all night, made the sea dry land and the waters were divided and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea.
Upon dry ground the waters were a wall unto them on their right side and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen. It came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians and took off their chariot wheels that they drove them heavily.
It may indicate here that they got bogged down. It says so that the Egyptians said, let us flee from the face of Israel. They tried to retreat perhaps for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians and the Lord said to Moses, stretch out thine hand over the sea that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their horsemen. Moses stretched forth his hand and you know the story, the sea closed up and drowned them all. Now folks, that's a miracle. There's no other explanation.
Now there have been some offered, let me suggest. Somebody said, and I was reading it this week, that actually what happened here is that at the north end of the Red Sea you've got a little area called the Bitter Lakes. And the Bitter Lakes are sitting at the north end of the Red Sea and supposedly this guy says that the Bitter Lakes, though they were disconnected, had a marshy connection in those days. And between the Bitter Lakes and the top of the Red Sea was a little marshy area two or three inches deep. And what really happened was they waded through the marshy area. And, in fact, a southeast wind blew up the channel, now watch this, and the stiffness of the wind held the water in the Bitter Lakes and the tide ebbed away in the Red Sea and with a stiff wind holding the Bitter Lakes up and the tide ebbing in the Red Sea, it left a little bit of dry and they kind of waded through the marshy two or three inches.
Friends, that's weak. Listen, friends, if the children of Israel walked across a shallow marshy area, that leaves a greater miracle. You explain to me how the well-trained Egyptian army drowned in two inches of water. I'll tell you what that strong east wind was. It's the breath of God.
That's what it was. God walled it up on both sides. It's a miracle. Now why do you want to worry about the miracle? If you believe in God, let the miracle alone. If God is, let Him do. Let Him reveal Himself. So stupid for puny little picayune man to sit down here and say, no, no, God, we won't allow that.
Must explain it rationally. Let me give you another miracle, Exodus 16. This is the miracle of angel food cake.
You remember this one. Manna, Exodus chapter 16, verses 14 to 22 tell us about it. And I'm not going to read it except to just say you remember that in the wilderness for forty years God provided manna.
God fed them with something that He created. Let Him be God. Listen, folks, the very fact that this Bible records a miracle tells me it's God's book, right? Let me tell you some miracles that affected individuals. Turn to Numbers 22.
Not only the world and nations, but individuals. This is the miracle regarding Balaam's talking ass. Remember him? Interesting...I mean, more than interesting...fascinating. Verse 21 of Numbers 22, and Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab. Now he's off and he's a prophet for hire and he's doing the wrong thing. And God's anger was kindled because he went and the angel of the Lord stood in the way. The angel of the Lord just stood right in front of Balaam. He's going along riding on his ass and Balaam's moving along and the angel stands there. Two servants are with him and the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword in his hand. The animal sees the angel. And he turned aside out of the way and went into a field and says, and Balaam smote the ass to turn it out of the way.
What are you doing? And this thing is going off in the field and Balaam hasn't seen a thing but the animal sees the angel of the Lord there with a big sword. The angel of the Lord stood in the path of the vineyards. The animal gets over in a vineyard and he's wandering around over there and the angel comes over there and he stands in the path of the vineyard, 24. A wall is on the side on one side and a wall is on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, now he's in a little narrow area with a wall on each side and the angel's in the middle and there's nowhere to go.
So what happens? It says in verse 25, when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself under the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. And he smashed it again.
What are you doing? He couldn't see anything. And the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam and Balaam's anger was kindled and he smote the ass with a staff. Now he is really mad at that animal. Stupid animal. What is that animal doing? This is a familiar animal. I mean, he probably ridden the thing every day. All of a sudden the animal's gone crazy, wandering all over, smashing his feet into the wall and...well, you want to know what happened.
It's very interesting. Verse 28 says, And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto Balaam, What have I done to you that you smote me these three times? What's your problem, Balaam? I mean, you know, you don't think God has a sense of humor? You say nobody would believe that. No sane individual would ever believe that. You know, one of the most sane individuals in all the Bible, one of the most precious saints of God that ever lived was the Apostle Peter. Read his books and see if he was sane. Read his books and see if he was lucid and listen to him as he says this. Talking of false teachers, he says in 2 Peter 2.15, Who have forsaken the right way and gone astray following the way of Balaam, who was rebuked for his iniquity.
The dumb ass speaking with a man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet. Peter believed in that miracle. And Peter's a credible witness, folks.
I believe it's a miracle. And so he says, Why are you hitting me? What have I done to you? And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me, I would. There were a sword in my hand, for I'd kill you. You know, the miracle isn't that the ass spoke to Balaam, it's that Balaam answered.
I mean, I think I would have fallen flat on the ground, you know. Now you know, what is a critic going to do with this? I mean, a guy wants to believe that there's a God, but he doesn't want to believe something like this.
So I checked on some of what the critics say. Some of them say he was in a trance. Balaam was in a trance when the animal spoke.
And I thought to myself, it would be very difficult to be in a trance after a donkey just smashed your leg into a wall, very unlikely. One other critic said that Balaam had a habit of talking to himself and he had such a habit of talking to himself that he really is just replying to himself and the witness mistook it for the talking of the animal. Somebody else said that he was so used to talking to the donkey that when the donkey brayed back to him, he was so familiar with the style of the braid that he interpreted what the donkey was saying. So Balaam said unto him, Because you mocked me, I would. There was a sword in my hand, for I'd kill you. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever accustomed to do this unto you?
Well, give me a break. Have I ever done it before? Before you kill me, this is the first time.
It's like the joke, you know, that's one. And he said, No, you never have done this before. The Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw.
He saw the angel with the sword drawn. It's a miracle. I'll tell you something, it got through to that guy. You know what's amazing about this miracle? It's so interesting that the donkey didn't say some great profound truth. The donkey talked like the donkey.
I mean, those are kind of the thoughts that the donkey must have had if he had thoughts. God used a miracle to stop this false prophet. Now what I want you to notice about this miracle that just astounds me is the total lack of defensiveness in putting it here. You know, if I were writing this down, I would say, Now folks, I'm about to say something that you're not going to believe.
There was this guy riding a donkey. You know, you would have to throw a few little statements in there to prepare them for the jolt. But you know something amazing about Bible writers? No matter how bizarre and how strange and how weird the miracle, they never defend it. They only state it.
They only affirm it. Think of it. This is Moses who wrote this, Moses. The genius of that man. That man who was raised to the elevation of the highest place in Pharaoh's court. That man who with a brilliant genius of leadership led at least several million people through the wilderness. That man who had given himself over to God to the place where he was used of God to communicate revelation regarding the Ten Commandments and many other things of law to set in order those things which God demanded of His people. That man of the highest level who wrote the Pentateuch with all of its deep truths and great doctrines, who wrote all the sweeping history of the beginnings. That man who wrote the astute account of the creation. That man who gave God's great law without any self-consciousness and without one defensive statement writes a story about a conversation with a donkey.
There's something exciting about that. That's a miracle and that tells me God is acting. And if God is acting in this book, folks, that's the kind of book I want because I want to know God, right?
Let me give you another one. Elisha, 2 Kings 4. So we could talk about several with Elijah and Elisha. But Elisha, Shumanite woman's son died, remember?
Verse 18 would be a start. 2 Kings 4, 18, and when the child was grown, it fell on a day that it went out to his father, to the reapers. He said unto his father, my head, my head. And he said to a lad, carry him to his mother, typical father. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon and then died.
Must have been a sad scene, don't you think? Holding her little boy till he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Remember she had a prophet's chamber that she provided for Elisha. She shut the door on the little boy and went out and she called to her husband, I should say, and said, send me, I pray, one of the young men and one of the asses that I may run to the man of God and come again. I have to go find the man of God, Elisha. And he said, wherefore wilt thou go to him today?
It's neither new moon nor Sabbath. There were certain times when they had meetings. She said, oh, it's well.
Everything's fine. She didn't want to break his heart, didn't want to grieve him, didn't want to disturb him. Tremendous faith. She saddled the ass, said to her servant, drive, go forward, slacken not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. And so off they went and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. It came to pass when the man of God saw her afar that he said to Gehazi his servant, behold, over there is the Shunammite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her and say unto her, is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with the child? And she answered, it is well." Boy, that's faith, isn't it? When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet and Gehazi came near to thrust her away and the man of God said, let her alone, for her soul is bitter within her and the Lord hath hidden it from me and hath not told me.
She's got a problem but God hasn't revealed it to me. Then she said, did I desire a son of my Lord? Did I not say, do not deceive me? Then he said to Gehazi, gird up thy loins and take my staff in thine hand and go thy way.
If thou meet any man, greet him not. If any, greet thee, answer him not again and lay my staff upon the face of the child. And the mother of the child said, as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose and followed her and Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him and told him, saying, the child is not awakened.
And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead and lay upon his bed. He went in therefore and shut the door upon the two of them and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up and lay upon the child and put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his hands and stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child became warm. Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro and went up and stretched himself upon him and the child sneezed seven times, the first act of recovered respiration. And the child opened his eyes and he said, Get the lady.
And when she came, he says, Take up your son. That's a miracle of resurrection. You say, nah, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. That's what the critics say.
Sure. The guy was fading fast and he got up there and gave him mouth-to-mouth. You know what it says in that passage twice? It says he was what? Dead. He was dead. It's a miracle. This isn't just a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
This isn't a semi-coma where the body heat releases the life. Not at all, resurrection. Now if you believe in God, why do you worry about the resurrection?
Let him be God. So there were miracles affecting all people, nations, individuals. You say, Are there any of them in the New Testament?
Oh, in the New Testament. Peter and John cured a lame man. Peter and the others were delivered from prison. Philip was carried through the air by the Holy Spirit. Paul healed a cripple. Paul cast out spirits and healed the sick. Paul was raised from the dead.
Paul raised Eutychus from the dead. And so it goes. Listen, friends, this is a book about God. You know how I know it's about God?
Because it has what? Miracles. You take away my miracles, you've taken away God. Let God be God.
Let Him act. And beloved, this is the record of His acts. And because it's miraculous, I believe it's divine. The miracles don't send me away from the Bible.
They drive me into it. Because without miracles, you have no God. You have no Bible. You have no salvation.
You have no hope. But with this miraculous book, proven as it is to be God's revelation, there is hope. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John is showing you compelling reasons why you can trust everything the Bible says.
He calls his series, Is the Bible Reliable? Now, John, over the last couple of days, you've been looking at how the miracles in Scripture give a strong validation that God's Word is true. So a question that some people may have is this.
Does that principle still apply today? Should we look for signs and miracles in our church and in our own lives to prove that the Bible is true and that the Spirit of God is real and at work? No, because the Scripture clearly indicates that those were the signs of an apostle, and it says that, the signs of an apostle. If you put yourself in the first century situation and all of a sudden you have some people saying, We're the true representatives of the kingdom of God. We speak for God.
We speak for the Son of God. And there are all kinds of other people talking about all kinds of other religious realities. How do you know who's telling you the truth? How do you know that these men represent God? There had to be some way to validate that. And God designed that they would be given the power to do miracles as a validation that they were the true representatives of God. Now, since we now have the Scripture complete, it validates itself. There is no reason, then, to validate any further teachers with miracles. You validate them by their fidelity to the Word of God. Any teacher today can be tested, can be discerned as true or false, based not upon some miracle power or some supernatural insight, but rather fidelity to Scripture. The Scripture has become the final authority and measure of all those who say they speak for God. Strangely, as it may seem, the people today who are claiming miracles, signs, and wonders represent the worst theology, if not outright heresy. So you can be certain of one thing, God wouldn't validate false teachers with miracles.
That should in itself be an indication that they are false. And I can tell you there's a good book that has done a lot of work in many lives through the years called Strange Fire. We put that together some years ago along with a conference on Strange Fire that continues to have a life, really just an amazing, lasting impact to liberate people from false understandings with regard to miracles and supernatural signs. The title of the book is Strange Fire.
It really will help you because it will answer the questions of how we are to evaluate those who claim to represent the power and work of the Holy Spirit but whose theology is not biblical. Again, Strange Fire, reasonably priced and available from Grace to You. You can order it today.
Thanks, John. Friend, this book will deepen your understanding of miracles and the Holy Spirit's work and help you respond to those who misrepresent the Spirit's ministry. Order your copy of Strange Fire today when you contact Grace to You. Call us at 855-GRACE. You can speak directly with our customer service team on weekdays between 730 a.m. and 4 p.m. Pacific Time. Or you can place your order at the website GTY.org.
Strange Fire costs $15 in hard cover and shipping is free. Again, to order, call 855-GRACE or order from our website GTY.org. And when you get in touch, make sure you let us know if John's current study has strengthened your trust in the Word of God or if our recent series on True Faith has deepened your trust in Christ. And especially if someone you know has come to faith in Christ after hearing John's teaching, email your story to letters at GTY.org or you can mail your letter to Grace to You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Now for John MacArthur and our staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television every Sunday. You can find it on DirecTV channel 378. And then be here Monday to learn more about the amazing miracles of Jesus and how they help confirm that the Bible is true. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
