What's Your Miracle? Part 1

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ministry where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Welcome to Man Talk Radio. Sorry about that, folks. We just had our mic, so we're turning it way too loud.

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Yes, Will, thank you so much. Folks, we're going to talk about miracles. That's our topic for today. Do miracles still exist? Is it a thing of the past? Has God turned his back on providing miracles to the corporate level, to the church at the corporate level, to communities, counties?

How about individuals? Do we still have miracles in today's time? We're going to talk a little bit about that and talk about some of the miracles from the Bible and give it an opportunity to kind of challenge your thought process as well and ask yourself, where are you at related to seeing miracles in your life?

Amen. You know, I think there's probably two perspectives, Roy, when we talk about belief in miracles, and I think certainly in today's time there has been a lot of validation with respect to miracles. So I think if we say miracles don't exist today, then we're sort of like putting God in a box, you know, to say that these things stopped, you know, with the institution of the church. But I think there are countless miracles that have been documented of reputable people. We're talking about doctors, we're talking about people in specialized fields who have had incidents in their life take place and all of a sudden this miraculous thing occur and they get completely turned around.

And of course, you know, you remember when we had Lee Strobel on the line a few months back, you know, we were talking about that, that there was this one young lady named Barbara, and we'll talk about her later on in the show, but I mean it was just such a fantastic thing that the Lord did in her life. Yeah, you did a good job there, Will, saying that we kind of put God in the box if we don't look for the miracles or don't expect the miracles. He is providing miracles every day. I think some of the questions I have and some that you and I have talked about in the past is because, you know, especially in the U.S., we've turned our back on God as a country, you know, we've forgotten that that was the foundation of our forefathers, that was the Bible, and we've kind of just, when I say the country, speaks specifically to laws, to the policies that we've just walked away.

So you have to wonder, God, are you really worried about the country like you used to be because we've turned our back on you? And that's the question I ask myself, especially looking at how it just continues to pair down this road, but on an individual basis, you and I've talked about the miracles that just happened in our own life and some very similar to each other, and I think that's going to be a great opportunity for us to share some of that on today's program as well. Yeah, because miracles, I think, again, it depends on the view, and of course, the worldview, I think, is what you're referring to of the country has changed from what it used to be. So when we talk about a miracle, Roy, I like using the definition. Of course, I had a different definition until I started reading Lee Strobel's book on a case for miracles, but there was a great definition of miracles in the book that he talked about, and what he said was that, well, actually, he was taking this quote from someone else, but in the book, he said that a miracle is when God intervenes in the natural process of the laws that he has established for the earth. So, and he used the example to where if you take a ball or an object in your hand and you hold it up, and then you let that object go, gravity is going to take that object down to the floor. But as you drop that object again and all of a sudden you put your hand out and you catch the ball, now you're interfering or intervening with the gravitational process in stopping the ball from hitting the floor.

Great, absolute great definition. So because God established the natural order of things, God can intervene in the natural order. And I think that's where we, as God's children, we put our faith in, not in man, but we put our faith that God is able to do whatever he does, either through men or not using men at all. Yeah, that's a great analogy. You know, the interruption, the physics behind the ball dropping is the hand catching it. And when I was listening to that, Will, you and I have talked about this, and it's maybe been several months back, you know, about my particular miracle that I shared with you, is that interruption of physics. You know, when I was headed for oncoming traffic five lanes wide, and God pushed me back onto the inside of that own ramp, which by physics and laws of physics, it went the wrong direction.

So what a great illustration. And folks, I'm sure as you're thinking through this process right now, you're thinking, well, when did I experience a miracle or when did I witness a miracle? I'm sure if you've lived long enough, you can look back over your lifetime and something happened that interrupted the natural forces or expectation of what was about to happen, whether it be a car accident, you know, like we've just spoken about, potential drowning, which I've shared with you, Will, about going through a child just inexplicably getting ready to fall off the bed gets pushed back up on the bed.

I've had a friend who's seen that happen in his own home. So we know that God is out there watching after us with his angels and that he's got a cover over us. And that's why it's so important to stay in fellowship, right, Will, with him every day and not get to a point of complacency or comfort that we've arrived. Exactly. Because, you know, I'm just thinking about individuals who might be skeptical. And see, speaking from a skeptic standpoint, a skeptic, they want to see something that's verified. Yeah. So, and I think other skeptics, even if they see something that's verified, then they're questioned whether or not what you are presenting to them was incorrect from the beginning. So, and I don't have a problem with someone wanting some type of verification.

I really don't, because this is the thing. The thing is this, is that you have, well, let's use an example of one of the miracles that occurred, as Lee talked about in the book, A Case for Miracles. There was this young lady named Barbara, and Barbara had a degenerative type of scoliosis, or it just kept plaguing her internally. She didn't have control over her bowels, the muscles in her legs and arms were at atropies.

She could not eat or swallow certain things because those muscles were all interrupted. And so, basically, Roy, the doctors had written her off. And they said, there is absolutely nothing we can do.

Well, the family of Barbara never quit. And so, what they did is they said, okay, we're going to get a group together, and we're going to pray. And then the prayer requests just went out, not only to the group, but I think they, yeah, they even got on the radio and they talked about praying for Barbara.

So all these requests were going out. And don't get confused now, listener. It's not the amount of people who are praying that God is going to listen to just because you have 20 or 2,000 people praying. That has nothing to do with it. It really doesn't, Roy, the amount of people praying. It is the faith that those people have in God that he is able to do what they're requesting him to do.

It's just like we talked about before in 1 John, chapter 5. He said over there that this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know he hears us, then so whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we require or ask of him.

So as we make our way through this, we ask of him. So as we make our petitions up to God, God hears these petitions and we wait until the answer comes down. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the answer is slow.

Or wait. Sometimes the answer is go. So God has their stages and God knows why if you make a request, why you may not receive that request at the time you ask. And that's a hard thing for believers to be patient. But I think the other side of that is discernment of the answer. To really ask God to reveal his answer. To your point, it may be wait, it may be slow, and it may be no, as we've talked about in the past.

It may be no. So that's the other thing, folks, is discernment. When it seems like you're not getting an answer, that's the time to really come to the foot and say, Father, please help me understand what you're trying to get across to me here.

What is your answer in this matter? And oftentimes we're too impatient. And sometimes the part of the answer is letting time pass in order to get to the place we need to be, or for things to kind of fall in line in God's alignment to line up with his answer for us. And we try to help God along sometimes too. We try to help God along because it's like, God, you're not moving fast enough for me, so maybe I need to go out here and do something in order to initiate the requests that I'm making unto you right now. And I think we find ourselves getting into more trouble when we do that. God does not need our help in that process.

No, he does not. So Will, let's talk something about the miracles. What's the most common miracle that comes to your mind from the Bible when you think about the miracles? Well, when I think about the miracles, I think about miracles of healing. I think healing is perhaps a lot of what I see in, particularly in the Old Testament. And it reminds me of, reminds me of Matthew chapter 12, when Jesus, they brought a man who was demon possessed to him and God cast out the demonic spirit that was in him. And as a result of casting that demonic spirit that was in him, when the religious leaders saw it, what they said was, oh, something happened here, but he's doing this by Beelzebub, which is the chief demons. And then of course, Jesus came back and said, look, if Satan cast out his own... We got to take a quick break, Will, we'll be right back.

I will hold on to that thought. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast. Every first third and fifth Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious host church, First Christian Church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville. It all starts at 630 and they have a hard stop at eight o'clock.

First time visitors eat for free. Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Praise God and welcome back to Man Talk. And, you know, Roy, we were talking about before how Jesus was casting out the demon of the demonic possessed man and how we see miracles of healing. Uh, again, I'm reminded of the man who sat by the pool of Siloam, the woman who had the issue of blood, you know, and raising up of Lazarus from the dead. So I think this, the miracles of healing is probably what we, what I see most, uh, in the scripture. But what was amazing is that when Jesus knew the hearts of the Jewish leaders, when they challenged him and they, and said, you're doing this by Satan. And Jesus came back with, look, if Satan started casting out himself, then his whole kingdom is going to fall. So it's, but if I do it by the spirit and hand of God, then you'll know God is involved. And I've come as the son of God in God's name to do his will. Amen.

Amen. The paralytic comes to mind, you know, the, and that was the faith as you'd mentioned earlier, it's the faith of the people pray when in this case was the faith of the men of, they were carrying the paralytic, tore the hole in the roof and put him down to Jesus. It was their faith that Jesus honored and healed him.

Plus the feeding of the thousands multitude, two times, many, many, many people, 5,000, I think one in the 4,000 wasn't on the other time and quite amazing. And see what makes this amazing, Roy, is that Jesus did none of the miracles in private. So there were always witnesses, including, uh, uh, the, the blind man or the, the man who was lame. And so the Jewish leader said, who did this? And he said, I don't know who did it, but I do know this man, Jesus, you know, and then, and then, so they went and got his parents. We, we not going to believe you, we going to, and so then they turned to his parents and they said, well, who healed this man? And the parents came back and said, look, he's old enough to speak for himself.

Ask him. So I think, I think all of the times, Roy, when the Jewish leaders challenge what Jesus did, they really didn't have anything to fall back on because what they were simply doing was trying to discredit him because if they discredit him, then the people would continue to follow them. Right. And see, it was all about them and not about Jesus. Of course.

And, you know, turn water to wine. That was certainly the first miracle. Right. And so the other thing that comes to mind is at the funeral procession that Jesus came upon in Luke, uh, where the widow had lost her only son, you know, and then, and of course, ready to bury the child.

Right. And, uh, and he raises the child from dead. So amazing the things we think about, you know, it's in scripture and how God has showed himself and honored people continue to honor him. And if we would honor him today, I think we would see more of those things.

That's right. And I think, Roy, we see, we see most miracles happening today, I think in places where they need to happen. Yeah. So we, we're seeing them in third world countries. We're seeing them in places where people have perhaps worship idol gods or worship their ancestors and other things like this. And God is making himself known, you know, within those countries. So he is allowing things to happen over there because there's this great influx of people who want to know more about who Jesus is and what he's capable of doing. So I think that, that I think is enough for us to see and understand why perhaps we don't see as many miracles happening in the United States as perhaps we've seen happen in the past, or again, as you so eloquently alluded to that we as a country are just falling away. Yeah. And that we cannot stress enough the fact that we need to come back to the father, especially as a country.

Right. And we are, I would say we're probably in more need of miracles today in this country than we probably ever have been. If you look at the condition of the families, condition of the children, the exposure that's being put in front of our children, exposures being put in front of adults, just the violence that we're experiencing right now as a country.

I mean, it seems like every day there's some sort of killing or shooting that we're hearing more and more about, you know, that we used to not hear those kinds of things. And I, the miracle piece, I think to sit down and contemplate folks about your father, your heavenly father and what he's done in your life. I don't think we do enough reflection and enough time of Thanksgiving.

We're always in need of something, but I think it was a great opportunity to say, hey, let's thank him for everything that he has given us and what he's done for you. And, you know, we've all had troubled lives. We all deal with issues in our marriages and issues and with children. It's just part of life. You know, we got Adam and Eve to thank for that.

They broke the fellowship originally. But if we just take time to reflect and be thankful for what we do have, because someone's always got it better, someone's always got it worse, but God's still in the miracle business. Oh, absolutely, Roy. And, you know, again, to get back to just a little bit on Barbara's situation that we were talking about earlier is that she had verifiable medical evidence of her condition from an oncologist, from a neurologist, from a internist and from a general practitioner. And so there were like four different types of doctors along with some of their colleagues who was attending after Barbara. And so Barbara was laying there in the bed. And of course, she knew all of the people that was praying for her.

She was laying there in the bed. And then all of a sudden she said, I heard a voice that said, get up and walk. Same thing that Jesus said to some of the people, like the man who was at the pool of Siloam. Well, he was making up excuses.

Well, Jesus, every time I attempt to get up and get into the pool, somebody get into the pool in front of me. Jesus didn't even address that. He just said, if you want to be made whole, believe, take up your mat, get up and go.

And that's exactly what the man did. But all of these doctors, all of these x-rays, all of that was verifiable. It was without any dispute, even from the biggest skeptic, that this woman was healed by some type of remission of her illness.

No, all of the doctors had written her off, every single one of them. And when the prayer was made and when she heard the voice, all of a sudden she said, it didn't come right away. It came in like stages. So her hands were bent to the point to where her fingers could almost touch her wrists. And she began to get strength back into her fingers. She began, her muscles began to be able to move because she was in the bed for so long, she couldn't even stand up. And so she got up, slid over to the side of the bed, got up and started walking. And then she called for her father and other people to come into the midst. And when they came in the midst, they saw and they just began to praise God.

And what makes it really, really exciting, Roy, and again, all of this was from medical doctors, written her off. She went to the church, I think it was a Methodist church, where her parents went. And all of a sudden she went down the aisle when the pastor asked if anyone just needed to come down the aisle and get prayed for. And she said, I have been in the church. And she said, I have basically a miracle that happened in my life. And so here's a person couldn't swallow, couldn't have control over their bowels, scoliosis, degenerative diseases, you know, eyes closing up, no use of muscles because she was in the bed for so long and walking down the aisle. And all of the people who were in the church, you know, because churches like that, family, so everybody know everybody. And so all of them knew that she was in the bed for all these many years. And then to see her walking, it was just a tremendous thing. And of course, you know, when we talked to Lee about her, he had basically said after we did the show with him that she had finally passed away.

But see, here's the key, Roy. She was supposed to pass away 30 years earlier, and God gave her 30 years. You hear that?

30 years, he gave her that she wasn't supposed to have according to the doctors. Miracles, miracles. They do exist, listener. And God has shown you, each and every one of you who are listening, that there's something that has happened in your life.

That's right. That you know you can explain it. And the only way you can explain it is that God was the one who intervened in your behalf.

The hand of the father was intervening, interrupting the physics. Absolutely. Yes, that's amazing, Will. Good stuff, folks.

Good stuff. What is your miracle today? What are you asking God for? Do you believe that God can give that miracle to you? Will He deliver that miracle to you? Is it a loved one that's sick?

Is it the job situation? Is it a lost child that's not following God? What is your miracle? You need to be thinking about that, folks, and just want to encourage you to be thinking about it and pray for it as we're wrapping this session up, and we'll continue on the next show along miracles and acts of God, and we just trust you'll join us next week. But what is your miracle? And we would like for you, if you want to share your miracle, you can email us.

Go to the website, email us your miracle, and share with us how God had intervened in your life to do something so extraordinary that you simply could not explain it any other way except God is the one who did it. And see, and when Lee was talking to Craig Shermer, Dr. Shermer, I mean, not Shermer, or Kenner about the miracles that he wrote down in his book. I'm gonna get that book, by the way. It's a good book. He had some excerpts. It's a good book.

It's a good book. And so I'm going to talk more about some of the miracles that Dr. Kenner wrote as Lee recorded them in his book when he had the conversation with him so many years ago. Folks, we thank you for joining us. We love you, and we look forward to having a visit with you next week. God bless and have a great week. God is able.

Jesus is Lord, and we are not. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.