Miracles After Hours

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio. We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Network Podcast.

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours, and we are talking about miracles today. That's pretty cool. So, we are discussing miracles, some scripturally and some personally, in our life. And so, we're going to continue talking about the miracles today.

We are discussing miracles, some scripturally and some personally, in our life. And so, we're going to continue talking about those in this show. And so, we're going to share more of our personal stories. And so, if you didn't listen to the first show, it's definitely worth a listen. Go back and you can get it on Spotify, any of the podcast outlets. They have it, Masculine Journey Radio. That's all you've got to put in, and you'll find us. So, I guess if you're listening to the After Hours, you've already found us. So, never mind.

You've found us. So, go back and listen to the show. We are going to pick up where we left off. And so, Kenny, you actually have the first clip this time, if you want to tell us a little bit about it, and then we can play it. Okay, this song here was one of my brother-in-law's favorites, you know, growing up and all. But he developed cancer, you know, in his early 60s. And he was five years older than me, so he's like a big brother. He didn't have a brother, I didn't have a brother, but we came like brothers. You know, we had our moments. Good, it's just struggles, but that's life.

And it's brotherhood. Yeah, that's right. That's part of it.

You work through these things. But when he got the terminal thing, you know, I went and talked to him. And he was down, of course. But he told me, he said, you know, bro, I don't deserve to go to heaven, because he knew he had the terminal thing. And I said, I know it. I said, none of us do. I said, right now, Satan's gonna come after you, because he wants to steal your testimony here at the end.

I said, I had him memorize Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. We're saved by grace through faith. This does not come from us. It's a gift from God. And no man can boast. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. I said, remember, it's a gift. All he wants us to do is be thankful and say, Lord, you give us what we need, because we can't earn it.

We can't deserve it. But it comes from that love. But this song was, when he was going through his treatment, he got very sick. And he went into a coma really quick. And my sister was crying out. And they actually called us in. The doctors called us in. And we actually called the pastor. And then one of the elders came with him and prayed over us and encouraged us in this moment. And by God's grace, the next morning, he came out of it. I mean, he was tubed up, if you know what I'm saying.

The breathing tubes, the whole nine yards. And he was starting to blue a little bit. So it was one of them times we know God stepped in.

And I told my sister, never forget this. Never forget that we're the clay. And he's working on us. But that broken and contrite spirit. And I looked contrite up. I wanted to make sure I had the right word. It's kind of like a repentant spirit. Father, I've been trying to do it on my own.

We did all these doctors, we did all this, and nothing's working. And that surrender point. But I'll let you play the clip, then I'll kind of tie it up some more. Sweet days of summer, the jasmine's in bloom.

July is dressed up and playing her tune. And I come home. From a hot day's work, and you're waiting there. I'll care in the world. See the smile weighing in the kitchen.

You're cooking on the plates for two. Feel the arms that reach out to hold me in the evening when the day is through. Summer breeze makes me feel fine. Glowing through the jasmine of my mind. This song, if you listen to it, it was about that relationship that my brother-in-law and sister had. They held on to each other through all this. And God held on to them. And even brought us all closer because of that. And that miracle of him coming into our life like that, you've got to hold on to them things. And you've got to realize us being alive each day is actually a miracle. It's just because of His grace that He came into redeem us.

Because while we were dead in our trespasses, He died for us. But they have that two months where she can say goodbye and they can make their final plans on things. But for us, it has faith.

We know it's temporal. There is a reunion. They call it the love feast of the Lord. And that's when we get together with our forever family and the relationships won't be broken. And this is one thing that, you know, thank God He sent Christ to destroy the works of the devil. And the last thing is thrown into the lake of fire is death.

So this, our death here is just laying down this flesh to get that eternal gift that God's brought to us through Christ. Thank you, Kenny. And that was Seals and Crofts that sang that song, in case you guys didn't know.

But it is. We debated that. We thought it might have been a couple different people. England Dan and John Ford Coley is one I threw out there. You threw out Crosby, Stills and Nash. Which was, they all sounded kind of similar back then. But yeah, that was a great song.

Thank you. And I don't know that you mentioned it. Did you mention that that was his favorite song? Yes, you did. Yeah, we were listening.

I am not picking that up tonight. I'm sure the listeners, if you guys understood that, please email me. But Andy at mascoandjimmy.org.

Andy needs to listen better at it. So, David, do you have something you'd like to share on this topic of miracle? Well, so with miracles, I think, you know, it's not always necessarily about, I mean, as we were talking earlier in the other show, yeah, the miracles in the Bible were extraordinary.

But, you know, looking back at my last month, just in general, you know, a lot of times when you had, not the first time, outside of asking for like the wind lottery and those kind of things, you know, I legitimately got down. What was it, like three weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago and ask God, I mean, personally in prayer and as well as publicly on Facebook, just for a miracle. And the miracle in my head I had would turn my daughter around where we're at full circle and just get out of there fast. But ultimately, the miracle gave me, it took some time of looking back and realizing it was the doctor that he gave me that night. We're in the hospital that actually listened to me and listened to the concerns and talked to my daughter during that to see and believed everything that was going on and actually gave her the help that she needed. So, I personally believe that, you know, miracles happen every day. And, you know, a lot of times God uses, touches our heart or other people's hearts to be able to get a hold of them and work them through things. And those is my definition of the miracle on that. So, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. So Rodney, now we come to your clip. We strategically waited. Oh, I know.

Yeah, because I figured this would give us lots of things to talk about through the rest of the show. Yeah, and at least I'm, I feel pretty good because this time my clip didn't get changed behind my back. So without me knowing it. Have I changed your clip? No. Okay. I didn't think I had.

You hadn't. Okay. No.

Must have been another host that was here. No. Oh, I got nothing. No.

Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah.

But, so this is a clip from one of the R.C. Sproul's teachings. And the actual name of the clip, if you want to go get more detail from him specifically, is Are There Still Miracles Today? And what he was doing was trying to do, you know, in a series of teachings, just, he's like, I got to cover this topic called a miracle. And so he tried to, you know, come at it from a very biblical sense of, well, what is a miracle and why are miracles there?

And there's a lot more to really kind of talk about that I'd rather just kind of listen to this first and then talk on the back. Okay. Here we go. We begin, first of all, with the first difficulty, and that is with the definition of a miracle. I find that people who talk about miracles don't always mean the same thing. And that particularly when a theologian is discussing miracles with a layperson, quite often they're two completely different things that are in view. And so the first thing we ask is, what is a miracle? Now, some people say that any answer to prayer, any divine operation that continues in this world today is a miracle. Others argue that any supernatural work, such as the regeneration of the human soul, is a miracle. And some people even go so far as to say that anything amazing or fascinating, such as the birth of a baby, is a miracle. But in strict technical terms of definition, babies are born every day. There's nothing extraordinary. There may be something wonderful and beauteous about the birth of a child, but it is quite ordinary.

It happens all the time. I don't know how many pastors' offices I've walked in, and I've seen the sign on the wall, expect a miracle, as if miracles are something that we should expect as a commonplace, everyday occurrence in our life. And if that's the case, then miracles could be called ordinary rather than extraordinary. And yet the significance of miracles in the Scripture is found in their extraordinary character, not in their ordinary character. Now, at the same time, there are periods in biblical history where there is a blaze of miracles, a huge flurry of miracles concentrated in a short period of time.

So, one of the things when you're getting into this and R.C. Sproul goes through a lot of other explanations, again, it's helpful to have the whole context, but just for that reason, because you could call, do you go to call everything a miracle, or do you want to be very narrow? And that's one of the things that he argues in there, that theologians have done a really specific job of trying to narrow down what the definition is of a miracle. And it came up with, like, there's the broad sense and the narrow sense of what it is to have a miracle. And in the broad sense, it's basically an ongoing supernatural activity in the life of the believer, such as prayers. We'll take a break while he closes.

Well, I'd love to have water in the studio, but we're not allowed. But so, such as answering our prayers, pouring out of the Spirit, the changing of souls, you know, which, you know, that always is ongoing and continues today. But then the narrow sense is more of a extraordinary work performed by the immediate power of God in the external, perceivable world, which is an act against nature that only God can do, such as bringing life out of death or something out of nothing. So, which is, you know, some of the things that we see and we look through the Bible, there's many different things.

One of the examples that I like is Elijah, because he was not Jesus, which, you know, which was the pinnacle of miracles. But you have Elijah, which he's out there, and he goes to the Gentile woman when he could have went anywhere at this time of famine. And he ends up with her, and she's a Gentile. She doesn't really believe and trust in him.

She's down to her last bit of food, and her son actually passes away. And then Elijah brings him back to life, which actually is used, the miracles used to basically confirm that he is one of God's representatives. He is a man of God, and that's what she responds with there. You have, you know, the Egyptians being able to do some parlor tricks and things of that nature, but not really miracles in the sense of that intervening work of God.

They can trick things and make it look good. And one of the more interesting things that I loved about where he was going through was, in the New Testament Greek, there is not a word for miracle. I was like, it kind of perked me up. I was like, miracles not actually in the Bible, because it wasn't written that way. It's just translated sometimes as miracle. But they use signs, powers, and wonders are the words that they use. You know, there's awe, astonishing things. And really the whole point that he's making is that the signs are there to point to something beyond themselves, not just the miracle in of itself, it's to point to something else, which makes, to signify or make significant the one who's bringing them, like Elijah earlier. And I just, you know, made me really think, well, what do I call a miracle? Because one of the hardest things I've had to do is really try to not bring my own previous perception of things into, like, the Bible.

I come with my own definition, and that's where this was challenging to me, because it was like, well, what is the definition? Well, what does a Bible say? And it's like, well, in the New Testament, the word's not even there. And I'm like, okay, so how do you infer? And that's where his line of argumentation goes through and say, in a broad sense, you can say a lot of things are miracles, like we've been talking about.

And that's generally where we are societally. But if you just look biblically, it's a much more narrow act of God. And it was just interesting for me to be able to go through that, because one of the things he really gets into is, even where he starts some of his premise of his whole teaching is, well, you know, Satan. Because Satan's a very powerful being. Well, does Satan then do miracles? Because if they're ordinary and somebody other than God can do them, it's like, well, he goes down the path of, would you even go as far in as saying, well, then, couldn't Satan bring somebody into the world, kill them and raise them from the dead?

That should be a big joke. He's like, here's, you know, I don't believe that, this is what I do believe about the Bible. And there's some of that, but it's just one of those things I love about R.C., is he'll really challenge your thinking on these things. And I just really enjoyed kind of having the chance to go through a lot of this as to, well, what do you believe?

And where does that come from? There's just a lot of really good examples biblically. And I just loved his line of argumentation throughout to really challenge me to say, hmm, where would it have to go? How far does it have to be to actually be a miracle to me? So, I haven't heard the whole thing.

Sure. And so, just going off of what we've heard, it seems like there's, even in his argumentation, when he's laying it out and he's talking about, you know, the narrow. Right? So, when Chuck talks about his example in the first show of Paul on the road to Damascus, right, Saul on the way to the road to Damascus, is that a miracle?

Right? It only affects one person, initially. You know, too, if you count the guy, Ananias, it has to come talk to him, right? But it really just affects one person, but it eventually affects the whole world, right?

And so, yeah, it was a one-person intervention from God, but it impacted the world, right? And so, I think of, when I think about things like that, I think of a guy I worked with at my company in Indiana. I won't mention his name, because I don't want to do that, but in my mind, I thought, there is no way this guy's ever coming to Jesus, you know? I mean, I'd spent a lot of time with him, and I'm like, there's just no way.

I know me, so I know him. Yeah, I'd kind of written him off, you know, to some degree, because he really tried to talk to him and tried to witness to him. Well, next thing I know, he's calling me, saying, hey, can you come to my baptism? And so, he started dating a girl, and she invited him to church, and the pastor's sermon that week just floored him, you know? And he became a totally different person and impacted his whole family and impacted other things. And for me, you know, I look at that, and I say, okay, God's hands in that, and it may not impact the whole world, but it impacted the world of some people, right? And based on that definition, it still kind of fits, to some degree, you know, from a separate of R.C.

Sproul, what he was saying. And I know I didn't listen to the whole thing, but it's hard, because I think I find myself in the layperson, secular side, to some degree, on the miracles. You know, because I look at it and say, well, there's definitely things in my life that I know, if it was not God intervening, it wouldn't have happened. Yeah, and God intervening, God intervenes, I mean, he's all-powerful, he's all-knowing, and he's 100% completely sovereign. So, everything he knows what happens, he either allows it, allows Satan to do what he does, and, or he actually is the one creating the thing to happen.

So, obviously, his hand is in everything. It's just, I think that's where, at some point, that's where this challenged me enough to say, okay, at what point, then, does it become a miracle? It all depends on definition. And that's where, if we don't define what a miracle is, we're all going to be on different sides of the story, which is why I enjoy going down it, because I've heard so many discussions about people talking about whether it's a miracle or not, and defining one and all that.

So, I was like, well, I'm going to take some time, since that's our topic, to go see if I can figure anything out. Well, the way I look at it is, did God, was there some event in your life that was supernatural enough to where you took note to where it drew you closer to God, or it impacted your life in a way? And to me, again, most of that stuff, most of the miracles, there was a lot of stuff happening in Acts, and, of course, during Jesus' ministry, but there's a lot in the Old Testament and stuff.

But these are, we talk about the Bible as a book of examples, not exceptions. It's the micro level of those macro type of, you know, larger type of miracles, it's us receiving those individually. And those are the things, whether it's my baby got healed, we had a baby that we weren't supposed to, or God kept me from in that major wreck.

I look at them all in the same playing field because they impact my life in such a way. And to me, they're miraculous. God did it. That's just a simple way I look at it. Do we believe in luck, or do we believe in God's sovereign? Do we believe he's really our Lord and Savior? Because there's lordship, that means he's watching over us. You know, as a Heavenly Father, we're not orphan spirits. We've got to realize we've got a Heavenly Father that's there.

And that's Satan's biggest tool, is wanting us to get out of focus. Because I was talking to one of the brothers, I won't call his name, but about luck. Is that really a word we should use? To me, that's what atheists use.

They say, hey, chance, blah, blah, blah. Do we really believe in that, or we really believe God created like he created things? Because I do. And I know, I know, because I like the way Harold was talking earlier about we see with our heart. We don't look into our human eyes, we're seeing it through our, not on their own understanding, but in all our ways, acknowledge him. Andy, do you want to paraphrase, or do you want Harold to just say it?

I love the song, Open the Eyes of My Heart, and I used to listen to it a lot. And one day I thought of it, that the difference, if you're looking out through the eyes of your heart, you see God in everything. If you only look through your human eyes, you don't see God in anything.

Yeah, I'll agree with that, Harold. I mean, it really is about your heart, but it's also about who your heart belongs to. Because if my heart belongs to this world, I'm not going to see those miracles. I'm not even going to call them a miracle, I'm not going to say they came from God. You know, but when Sam was talking a minute ago, I think the picture that comes in my mind is like a ripple effect. You know, that ripple effect doesn't begin with me, it might start in me, but it begins with God. And then it ripples and ripples and ripples, and whoever it touches along the way, that's from God, but then it ends with God.

It's all about God, it's who gets that glory and that miracle. I know in my own life when we're talking about miracles, and my wife may not call this a miracle because she may be like, I should have run long ago. But you know, when she came into my life, I was at my lowest point.

I was not myself. But I know without any doubt, God placed her in my life. Any woman that can go from a single woman to a family of five and do it wholeheartedly, and not only accept me and where I was at that time and help lead me back. Because I walked with Christ all my life, but when I went through my divorce, I struggled, mightily I struggled. But she came alongside me, and whether she knows it or not, it was from God. And talking about that ripple effect, her family was raised Catholic, grew up Catholic. And now her mom, my mother-in-law, she goes to church with us. And it's amazing, if you just sit back and look, God has his hand in everything.

Whether we want to admit it or not or accept it or not, his hand is there, we just have to look for it. Yeah, when we get back to miracles, you know, for me it's, I guess looking back and thinking about this topic is, God, where do I really feel like you, like I said before, intervened? You know, one of the stories that I shared when I was asked this question at church, the memory he reminded me of is when my dad was dying. And my dad went from having a scratch on his arm to a week later he was in a coma.

You know, and gone to die. He ended up with a staph infection, started shutting down his kidneys, shutting down his heart, lots of things. And so very quickly we had to call family in from around the country. And at that point my brother lived in California, and the doctors were saying, there's no way he's going to last long enough for your brother to get here. And all we knew what to do was just pray, God, if it's your will, please let him be able to see that.

Because it's really important to him to say goodbye. You know, and so back then you're waiting on the plane, and the plane was, you know, a couple days. You know, and we just kept waiting. And you could only go in every five minutes or ten minutes every hour.

You know, one person could go in. You know, and so you might see him every once in a while. And so dad was holding on, and he held on until my brother literally got there, went in for that next visit. He went in and talked to my dad. And again, my dad was in a coma, but as soon as he told my dad, Dad, I'm here.

Everybody's here. Mom's going to be okay. Dad flatlined. He walked out of there.

Dad never, you know, woke up or anything. But, you know, for our family, that was a miracle that impacted us. You know, I can't really say that my brother became a Christian from that, but the story's not over yet.

Right? And I know that my brother remembers that, and he remembers the other things where he saw God's hand. You know, and I'm hoping that that fruit will produce, you know, that those seeds will produce fruit down the road. You know, and maybe it will, or maybe it hasn't.

I'm not aware. But, you know, all those for me are little miracles that lead to bigger ones. You know, and again, R.C. Sproul's a lot brighter than I am. He's a lot more theology driven. And I'm sure that, you know, he feels he's right in a lot of what he's saying.

I just know for me, if it draws me closer to God and I know his hand was in it, I'm okay with feeling like that's a miracle. Yeah, and again, it's definition. Right.

Agreed. So, again, the biggest thing is, what does the Bible have to say about it? And I think that's really interesting that it doesn't have the word. It doesn't give us a definition. We have to do some interpretation from what it does say. And one of the questions I really think is interesting how he praises this. If the presence of miracles proves that somebody is sent from God, which is the argumentation of that's what miracles are in the Bible, or is an agent of revelation and a non-agent of revelation performs miracles, what does that do for the eventual or the evidential value of a miracle for the one who claims to be an agent of revelation?

And he says, well, the answer is that's an invalid argument. So, he says, so what's at stake here is the issue that the authority of Christ, the authority of the apostles, and the authority of the Bible itself is all wrapped up in that issue of the miracles. So, it's like that's why he and other theologians are just trying to be very precise on how they define a miracle.

I think that's very interesting. Yeah, I'll choose not to be a theologian. I'll just stick with this part of the miracle. But what I'll ask you to go do this week is lean into God. And lean into him and say, God, help me on this topic of miracles. And if it be your will, show me things that you've done in my life that I would look back and say those are miracles. Those are times that your hand intervened and people were changed. Because change isn't something we just do on our own. God has to orchestrate it. We'll talk with you next week. Enjoy your week. This is the Truth Network.