BIBLE RECORDS | 124 MIRACLES (78)

1. What are "Miracles"?

a) Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws. Baker’s Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as “an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God.” It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws. So the term supernatural applies quite accurately.

b) Miracles are also known as Signs and Wonders.

c) Here we have one of the 124 miracles recorded in the Bible.

2. Miracle 78: OTHER FULFILLED PROPHECIES—Prophecy and Prophets.

a) Prophecy (or prediction of future events).

i) This was one of the functions of the prophet. It has been defined as a “miracle of knowledge, a declaration or description or representation of something future, beyond the power of human sagacity to foresee, discern, or conjecture.” 

ii) The great predictions which run like a golden thread through the whole contents of the Old Testament are those regarding the coming and work of the Messiah. The great body of Old Testament prophecy relates directly to the advent of the Messiah, beginning with Genesis 3:15, the first great promise, and extending in ever-increasing fullness and clearness all through to the very close of the canon. The Messianic prophecies are too numerous to be quoted here. “To him gave all the prophets witness.” (Compare Micah 5:2; Haggai 2:6-9; Isaiah 7:14; 9:6, 7; 11:1, 2; 53; 60:10, 13; Psalms 16:11; 68:18.)

iii) Many predictions also were delivered by Jesus and his apostles. Those of Christ were very numerous. (Compare Matthew 10:23-24; 11:23; 19:28; 21:43, 44; 24; 25:31-46; 26:17-35, 46, 64; Mark 9:1; 10:30; 13; 11:1-6, 14; 14:12-31, 42, 62; 16:17, etc.)

iv) The great use of prophecy was to perpetuate faith in his coming, and to prepare the world for that event. But there are many subordinate and intermediate prophecies, also, which hold an important place in the great chain of events which illustrate the sovereignty and all-wise overruling providence of God.

v) Then there are many prophecies regarding the Jewish nation, its founder Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 13:16; 15:5; 17:2, 4-6, etc.), and his posterity, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants (12:7; 13:14, 15, 17; 15:18-21; Exodus 3:8, 17), which have all been fulfilled.

vi) The twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy contains a series of predictions which are even now in the present day being fulfilled. In the writings of the prophets Isaiah (2:18-21), Jeremiah (27:3-7; 29:11-14), Ezekiel (5:12; 8), Daniel (8; 9:26, 27), Hosea (9:17), there are also many prophecies regarding the events which were to befall that people.

vii) There are also a large number of prophecies relating to those nations with which the Jews came into contact, such as Tyre (Ezekiel 26:3-5, 14-21), Egypt (Ezekiel 29:10, 15; 30:6, 12, 13), Ethiopia (Nahum 3:8-10), Nineveh (Nahum 1:10; 2:8-13; 3:17-19), Babylon (Isaiah 13:4; Jeremiah 51:7; Isaiah 44:27; Jeremiah 50:38; 51:36, 39, 57), the land of the Philistines (Jeremiah 47:4-7; Ezekiel 25:15-17; Amos 1:6-8; Zephaniah 2:4-7; Zechariah 9:5-8), and of the four great monarchies (Daniel 2:39, 40; 7:17-24; 8:9).

b) Prophet - Hebrew: nabi, from a root meaning “to bubble forth, as from a fountain,” hence “to utter”, compare Psalms 45:1).

i) Nabi is is the first and the most generally used for a prophet. In the time of Samuel another word, ro'eh, “seer,” began to be used (1 Samuel 9:9). It occurs seven times in reference to Samuel. Afterwards another word, hozeh, “seer” (2 Samuel 24:11), was employed. In 1 Chronicles 29:29 all these three words are used: “Samuel the seer (ro'eh), Nathan the prophet (nabi'), Gad the seer” (hozeh). In Joshua 13:22 Balaam is called (Hebrew) a kosem “diviner,” a word used only of a false prophet.

ii) The “prophet” proclaimed the message given to him, as the “seer” beheld the vision of God. (See Numbers 12:6, 8.) Thus a prophet was a spokesman for God; he spake in God's name and by his authority (Exodus 7:1). He is the mouth by which God speaks to men (Jeremiah 1:9; Isaiah 51:16), and hence what the prophet says is not of man but of God (2 Peter 1:20-21; compare Hebrews 3:7; Acts 4:25; 28:25).

iii) Prophets were the immediate organs of God for the communication of his mind and will to men (Deuteronomy 18:18-19). The whole Word of God may in this general sense be spoken of as prophetic, inasmuch as it was written by men who received the revelation they communicated from God, no matter what its nature might be. The foretelling of future events was not a necessary but only an incidental part of the prophetic office. The great task assigned to the prophets whom God raised up among the people was “to correct moral and religious abuses, to proclaim the great moral and religious truths which are connected with the character of God, and which lie at the foundation of his government.”

iv) Any one being a spokesman for God to man might thus be called a prophet. Thus Enoch, Abraham, and the patriarchs, as bearers of God's message (Genesis 20:7; Exodus 7:1; Psalms 105:15), as also Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15; 34:10; Hosea 12:13), are ranked among the prophets.

v) The seventy elders of Israel (Numbers 11:16-29), “when the spirit rested upon them, prophesied;” Asaph and Jeduthun “prophesied with a harp” (1 Chronicles 25:3). Miriam and Deborah were prophetesses (Exodus 15:20; Judges 4:4). The title thus has a general application to all who have messages from God to men.

vi) But while the prophetic gift was thus exercised from the beginning, the prophetical order as such began with Samuel. colleges, “schools of the prophets”, were instituted for the training of prophets, who were constituted, a distinct order (1 Samuel 19:18-24; 2 Kings 2:3, 15; 4:38), which continued to the close of the Old Testament. Such “schools” were established at Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Gibeah, and Jericho.

vii) The “sons” or “disciples” of the prophets were young men (2 Kings 5:22; 9:1, 4) who lived together at these different “schools” (4:38-41). These young men were taught not only the rudiments of secular knowledge, but they were brought up to exercise the office of prophet, “to preach pure morality and the heart-felt worship of Jehovah, and to act along and co-ordinately with the priesthood and monarchy in guiding the state aright and checking all attempts at illegality and tyranny.”

viii) In New Testament times the prophetical office was continued. Our Lord is frequently spoken of as a prophet (Luke 13:33; 24:19). He was and is the great Prophet of the Church. There was also in the Church a distinct order of prophets (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 2:20; 3:5), who made new revelations from God. They differed from the “teacher,” whose office it was to impart truths already revealed.

ix) Of the major Old Testament prophets there are sixteen, whose prophecies form part of the inspired canon.

x) These are divided into four groups:

@1.The prophets of the northern kingdom (Israel), viz., Hosea, Amos, Joel, Jonah.

@2. The prophets of Judah, viz., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah.

@3. The prophets of Captivity, viz., Ezekiel and Daniel.

@4. The prophets of the Restoration, viz., Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.