This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Ignite the Light Ministries Radio and Podcast. It is our mission to help listeners develop a deeper relationship with Jesus by sharing what the Bible says and what it means. We aim to encourage and equip you to serve others, share the gospel, and reflect Christ in every aspect of your life. I'm Pastor Wyatt Cud.
Thank you for tuning in.
So today we're going to be talking about miracles. Are miracles real? Do we understand them as historical events, or are they just meant to be understood symbolically? When we look at the Bible, we see we have a don't be talking. We have Jesus turning water into wine.
We have Jesus calming a storm, feeding five thousand from a few loaves of bread and a few fish. We have Jesus walking on water. We see miracles all over the Bible. Are we supposed to believe that these are real events? I want to start off with a piece of scripture for you that God put on my mind as I was driving this morning, Luke one thirty seven.
For nothing will be impossible without God. For nothing will be impossible without God. Now in this sermon we're going to be talking about the nature of miracles, and I want to take my time with it.
So likely continue with this next week. If you haven't read C.S. Lewis's book on miracles, I want to highly recommend it. It can be a little dense, a lot to chew on, but a good bit of this sermon was sparked from ideas in that book. What is a miracle?
How do we define it? A miracle is something miraculous, right?
Well, that didn't really help. It's kind of circular. You know, miracle is a miracle, of course.
Well, we might define a miracle as an event or something that violates or shatters a law of nature. But I think that's a little off too. Gary Habermas likes the phrasing. A miracle is something that temporarily supersedes the law of nature.
Now, a law of nature is a regularity or symmetry that we see in nature. I like this definition of overbreaking laws in nature because if it's broken, you know somebody's got to fix it, right? But with miracles, we don't see like there's something to be mended. But here's a problem. If we say God is the origin, the source of of the world, of this creator of the laws of nature, and God's will is never thwarted by the world, is God's will a regularity, a symmetry?
Is God's will like a law of nature itself? If so, a miracle is it bending or breaking nature at all? And I know this sounds confusing and good, because miracles are—they're a little confusing. They're simply beyond our ability to understand. Often, and we see that even in trying to define them.
I think most of our touches with the supernatural are like this, where they almost defy explanation. I think of John's vision in Revelation one. He's describing this vision of Jesus, and it's almost like you get the sense of he's doing his best to try to explain it, but what he saw was too great, too glorious to fully capture in words. Miracles are like this—a divine intervention, a temporarily that temporarily supersede nature's normally observed patterns. By nature, they're not repeatable; they're not testable.
But are miracles real?
Some of them sound too fantastic to be true. Can we know that miracles really happened? To answer that question, we have to back up a bit, and we got to ask the question: Can we know truth at all? Yes, no. It's a big question.
That's why I want to divide the topic and spend time with this. If we say yes, truth is noble.
Well, then we have a basis for reasoning. We have a basis for doing science and trying to understand how things work more deeply. But there comes with a moral obligation of I have a responsibility. I need to know truth more deeply. If we say know that truth is not knowable, well, then we've lost any kind of basis for understanding the world around us.
We've lost the basis for our faith. We have to assume that God is knowable and that we can know Him. But the draw, if we say truth is not knowable, the draw to that is nobody can tell you how to live your life. Yeah. What do we even?
How do we even know what's true?
So just leave me alone. Nobody can say boo about how you live your life if truth is not knowable.
So someone who rejects God might actually find this kind of desirable. The responsibility is gone. I can do what I want, and you can't say anything to me about it. But there's a glaring problem with saying truth is not knowable because that itself is a truth claim. You are claiming something is true about the nature of truth.
Truth is not knowable. Is that true? I thought it wasn't knowable. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? See, if we say truth is not knowable, guys, we can't even be having this conversation.
To understand the words coming out of my mouth depends on us agreeing that the meaning of words are not just in me. They're outside of myself. They're not debatable. The definition of my words are true, and we agree upon them. They're outside of myself.
That's how we communicate. We have to assume that there is truth outside of ourselves. If we're going to do science, come to know truth—not just about the universe, not just about God, but truth about anything—we have to make the assumption truth is knowable. Otherwise, we're wasting our time. And regardless of what anybody says, nobody lives like truth is not knowable.
Nobody could live that way. You get pulled over by a police officer. He says, "License and registration, please." What do you do? You reach in your glove compartment, like it is true. Those items are there.
You don't say, "Sorry, officer, I actually don't know if you're real or not." So have a nice day. That'd be ridiculous. Like we don't do that. We live as if truth is knowable and dependable. But when we look at other perspectives outside of the Christian faith, we'll see this assertion that truth is subjective, or everyone has their own truth that's all equally valid.
All while saying, "Yeah, well, miracles, yeah, probably not real, probably fairy tales." Or, and we ask, "Is that true? How do we know truth?" Relativism is among The most prominent perspectives in unbelieving America: truth is subjective. Everybody has their own perspective that's subjectively correct in its own rights. If we say truth is not objective, it's not outside of ourselves. We actually throw the ability to know truth at all in the garbage for the sake of making everyone feel better.
So can a man give birth? The relativist would say, "You have one person that says yes, one person that says no. I guess they're both right." And if that's the case, yes, no, something that contradicts itself. If they're both right, how can I know anything at all? In order to know truth, in order to explain—I promise this connects to miracles.
We're getting there. I promise. In order to know truth, in order to be able to explain why we give our license and registration to a police officer like he's real, we have to assume truth is objective, outside of ourselves, outside of our opinions and feelings, and that people can be wrong. Can a man give birth? Yes, no.
They can't both be right. Truth is singular, and not everything is true.
Now we don't always know what truth is, but it doesn't contradict itself by nature. This is the principle of non-contradiction. An animal can't be a dog and also not a dog at the same time. It never happens. Truth is not subjective.
Everyone doesn't walk around with their own truth. We might they might feel like it's true, but truth is external.
So it's good to listen to other people, to other perspectives, but don't assume every perspective is in line with objective truth. We make that same assumption for ourselves. I could be wrong. It's not things are not right just because I believe them. They are right when they are in line with truth.
So we should speak our understanding with the utmost humbleness. Ah, so since truth is external, outside of ourselves, outside of our own minds, do you reckon there's truth that you probably don't know about? Yeah, of course. There's a lot of things that are true that I don't know about. When we're a baby, there's a lot of truth that we don't know about, and it's our growth and development, part of learning this truth and applying it, that is our growth.
But just because I've never seen something doesn't mean it's not real. Truth is external; it's outside of myself. If all I've ever seen in life are chickens. And you tell me about a bird that lives in the Antarctic that can't fly, swims underwater. We call it a penguin.
I might be skeptical. I might hesitate to believe you. But just because I've never seen it doesn't mean it's not real. It's not true. It's probably good to be a little skeptical.
You know, if I tell you about unicorns, you probably have some good reason to not believe me. But truth is external. We have to assume there is truth we don't know about. We call this humility.
So relating to miracles. There are many unbelievers with a naturalistic perspective. That is the only thing that's real is the physical, spiritual, probably not real. They make this assumption because allegedly they've never seen the spiritual, so miracles have to be false because I've never seen it. Therefore, it doesn't exist.
You know, we might as well be talking about unicorns. Both Christian and atheist, we assume through our experience that we can arrive at truth by inference. I put my experiences together, and I can come up with an idea of what truth looks like. The difference is why we believe this. As Christians, we assume truth comes from God.
Proverbs one seven. It's our ability to reason that is from God and is a reflection of God. Second Timothy two seven, God is intimately involved in the process of what truth is and us coming to know it. Colossians one seventeen, and we assume God can cause us to know things. The atheists stooped in.
The naturalist perspective would say, our reasoning comes from evolutionary processes. We went from fish. And now we're philosophers. Our understanding of truth is simply the tail end of animal behavior that has evolved. It's hyper intelligent, but it's just cause effect, cause effect that has gotten us there.
But we see all these other animals. You got birds, monkeys. You got your little dog Rufus. They don't do rationale. It's instinct.
Even the smartest animals we see, chimpanzees, for example, naturalists will hold them up as a prime example of evolved intelligence that we've come from. And in a sense, yeah, they're really smart. But the difference is. They don't have the ability to understand truth outside of themselves. They don't have the ability to understand abstract concepts or ask the question "why." So let's say your little dog Rufus.
This is a really smart dog. He's hyper intelligent. You can train Rufus to take the garbage out. You can train Rufus to go get the mail for you, lock the door, shut the lights off, and tuck you in at night. This is a smart dog.
You can train Rufus to make you breakfast in bed. He can take you to Walmart. He can do your grocery shopping for you. Man, I want a dog like Rufus. But let's say your dog is like that.
The dog will do all of this, yet it will never ask the question why. That's the fundamental difference between animal behavior and divine human reason that comes from the image of God.
So how do we make this jump from instinct to high level abstraction to ask the question why the naturalist will say we didn't our intelligence is just the same cause and effect of animals at a greater capacity and then they're faced with this question that we don't have to deal with as Christians we don't have to if we're just stardust floating in a purposeless unguided universe and the end result of a giant Sequence of cause and effect, just a big math equation played out. How could we ever assume new truth comes from that? How can a giant math equation generate consciousness, awareness of itself, the ability to think about itself, and the direction it should go tomorrow? Two plus two equals four. That is true.
But it's not something that generates new truth. Two plus two does not equal a decision to choose engineering over welding. It does not equal something that sits there and contemplates the nature of what does it even mean to be two. That's ridiculous. There's something unique, something generative, something creative, a divine spark in humanity that we as Christians call the image of God.
I say all this. Because I want to make the point regarding miracles, the basis of science, the basis of assuming truth is knowable. When we even look at the subject to get anywhere at all, we fundamentally have to throw out naturalism, throw it in the garbage to get anywhere. Unbeliever, believer, alike have to borrow from the Christian worldview and assume truth is knowable. Truth is singular.
We can know truth. The unbeliever has to make all these assumptions, and then they just take out the part about image of God and being beheld into a creator. I don't like that part.
Now, in the words of C.S. Lewis, the Christian position on miracles is almost outrageous. But we're never in a position to say truth is not real, is not knowable. Truth is not a recent development that came from evolution that only serves to the end of our survival. Reason and truth is the fingerprint of God, older than nature.
In fact, nature comes out of and submits to the reason of God. Is the order of nature the reasonableness of nature alone that allows us to engage with it?
Now, I want to connect this to some scripture. It's about time. In ancient Greek philosophy, there's this idea of a unifying principle or a unifying reason that the world submits to. It's referred to as the logos.
Now, they didn't know to connect this to Christ, but we see in John one one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.
Now we think he's referring to Jesus, and we think, well, why doesn't John just say Jesus?
Well, it's for this reason: in the beginning was the Word. The Greek word there is logos, same word for organizing principle. In the beginning was the logos, Jesus. Jesus is the organizing principle. Jesus is the unifying reason from everything.
Jesus is the source of creation. This organizing principle took on flesh, died on a cross. Jesus is the very foundation of reason itself. When we're discovering truth, whether it's in math or carpentry, or we're looking at the intelligence of a chimpanzee, we are seeing the reality, the reason that comes downstream from Jesus. That is our foundation of truth.
It is Jesus. There's a God that created everything, cares about us, the trajectory of the world, and He chooses to interact with it. Evidence by the life and death, resurrection of Jesus. When that kind of God exists, miracles are not only possible; they are probable.
So instead of throwing miracles out as an impossibility, it does the Christian and non-Christian alike good to ask that divine question: Why? Why is this miracle in here? If God exists, why would He do this miracle? Acts fourteen three, Paul and Barnabas. Were granted the ability to perform miracles, signs and wonders is what they're called.
Jesus says in John four forty eight, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." This is what miracles are. They are signs and wonders. And we ask a sign for what? What am I supposed to wonder about? Miracles are signs that point us to something deeper.
To ask the question "Why?" and we can discover deep truth about who God is, what He desires, and the direction of His will. With God at the helm of the ship, miracles will happen continuously. Each miracle is like its own point of data. That surrounds the will of God like a frame of a picture that shows us what He's doing through time. Perhaps we understand miracles not from the camp of science, and we can't really test them.
But perhaps we understand them from the camp of history. What was the evidence for it? Are there firsthand accounts? Were there multiple people that saw this and have corroborating stories? Do they stand to lose something by affirming this happened?
To those who have nothing to gain from it, say that it happened. Look at the most significant miracle in human history—the resurrection. The Bible has proved itself time and time again to be historically reliable. It affirms this miracle. Jesus appeared to over five hundred people before he ascended into heaven.
There's your corroborating stories. The disciples faithfully went to their deaths for what they claimed about the resurrected Christ.
So there's people affirming this miracle at cost to themselves. It cost them everything. And then we have extra biblical sources like Tacitus, Josephus, Suetonius.
So you got two Roman historians around first century hundred A.D., and then you have one Greek historian. They have nothing to gain from this. They're not Christians. They don't believe it, but they affirm Jesus died by crucifixion. Was buried.
Disciples were discouraged. The tomb was found empty, and the disciples reported experiences of a risen Christ. And then the Christian religion exploded across Europe, Africa, Asia. Within one generation of Christ's death, there's nothing like that in history. Nothing compares to it.
Now we can't exactly go back in time and see for ourselves, but I like this analogy. Has anybody here done whitewater rafting? Anybody? Man, whitewater rafting is a lot of fun. It makes so when you're going down the river, you're navigating.
There will be rocks in the river that you don't see; they're under the surface of the water, and you can identify these rocks. Because you will see the water form ripples. There will be like a V in the water that points to what you can't see. And we go back. We we can't go back in time and experience a miracle for ourselves, but we can see the ripples of the event throughout history.
And if there are ripples, there's a rock. If we're willing to accept miracles on the basis of historical evidence, we can get somewhere. We can ask the question: What miracles have happened? What do they tell us about God? Signs of what?
Because miracles—they're not a magic trick for the sake of entertainment. They are a sign that points to something beyond itself.
Now we see in the Bible the Pharisees trying to pick them apart. They focus on the sign and they miss what it's pointing to. If you go to Taco Wagon and you just stand there and look at the sign the whole time, you're going to miss some tacos. You're going to miss some delicious tacos. They point to something beyond itself, something greater.
It invites us to something deeper. Miracles are like data points through history that point to a larger picture. They're ripples that point to what's under the surface. God, God's will, the direction He is moving in history.
So, if miracles are real, what do they mean? They mean there is a God who loves you so deeply. He is actively and intimately involved in the direction of history and your life across all time, and He's working towards something according to His will. And what Scripture tells us Romans eight twenty eight In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Has God finished this story in history?
No. There's more to come, and likewise, we can expect more miracles. Less than anyone thinks, God is done doing miraculous things. Let me share some stories with you. In 1988, there was a medical experiment done to see is there a correlation between prayer to the Christian God and physical healing.
They took 400 patients that were in coronary care, and they split the group group in two. Half of them received intercessory prayer to Jesus; the other half did not. And what they discovered from this study is there is a positive effect on those who received prayer without knowing it towards their physical recovery. There was a positive correlation between intercessory prayer and the coronary patients' recovery. Those who did.
Did not receive it. Did not show the same signs. Hey there. I hope this sermon has enriched your day. If you like this message, I want to personally invite you to join us for Sunday worship.
We have two locations in Virginia: Trinity Methodist Church in Concord and Mount Comfort Methodist Church in Appomattox. Come join us Sunday morning at 9:45, and we will help you get connected. As always, I'm Pastor Wyatt Cud. Thank you for tuning in.
