The Miracle

When Jesus was here in his earthly ministry, he performed many miracles, friends. He stilled a raging storm. He fed 5,000 with a couple of fish and a few loaves.

He walked upon the water like it was a royal carpet. He made the lame to walk and leap, the deaf to hear, the blind to see. He even raised the dead to life.

I submit to you, friends, that Jesus is still in the miracle working business, and I'm going to try to prove my point to you this evening. The title of my message is The Miracle, and my text can be found in the book of Genesis in chapter 1. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verses 1 through 3, and I want to read us this important passage of scripture as it pertains to creation.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Let me pause here, friends.

Picture that terrible scene in your mind. The earth, a void of chaos, without any form or light to shine upon it, just ruin and darkness everywhere. Some theologians call this the gap theory that Genesis 1-1 describes in original creation, which was followed by the fall of Satan and the judgment of God.

And this could explain why we can find fossils millions of years old, but since the time of Adam it's only been 6,000 years. And God looked at the whole mess and judged it and made a mess of nothing for eons and eons until he recreated the earth, which is what we see here in Genesis chapter 1, that there was a gap of time between God's judgment of the earth and its recreation. Now it's only a theory, friends.

Some folks believe it, some folks don't. I'm pretty old, but I wasn't there at the time, so I don't know. But I do know that this passage at the beginning of my Bible speaks of a chaos that the Spirit of God is brooding over.

Let me finish the verse. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. That word moved in the Hebrew is the word rakah.

And it means to flutter in the sense of a mother hen brooding over her little chicks with deep concern, putting her wings over them. We gather them, gathering them to her bosom. Another illustration would be a baby in a crib that is gravely ill, and the mother, that child, is leaning intently over the crib as she watches every breath and movement of her offspring, and her heart is deeply stirred, a rakah.

So the sense is here in our text that the Spirit of God is brooding over ruin and chaos. And the next verse states, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. Now keep all that in the back of your mind, friend, as we proceed, because I'm going to apply the same principle to the salvation of a lost sinner apart from God, and prove to you that God is still in the miracle work and business today in the salvation of lost souls.

Listen, friends, mankind enters this world in a ruined condition with the poison in his blood from his Adamic nature, which is totally depraved and in utter chaos and darkness and rebellion, concerning the things of God. God the Creator looked at this ruin in Genesis 1-1, and it moved his spirit deeply, a rakah, and he saw man's ruined condition because of sin. Through the fall of Adam, we see this in Romans 5-12, wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, for they all have sinned.

And as God beheld and brooded over the ruined chaos of elapsed time, he said, let there be light, and there was light. And as God sent his only begotten Son to suffer and die on an unknowable cross for sinful man, and we see in Romans 5, death through Adam and life in Christ, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And it is here, friends, where I will prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is still in the miracle work and business today as Jesus is seeking and saving lost sinners, taking a lost individual, ruined in sin, and transforming that poor blind sinner by giving him life and light to see the eternal spirit of God hover over a ruined rebel who is totally depraved and deserving of hell, and then woo that sinner by his spirit and bring it to Christ, rock off, if I may so speak, then to see God deliver that sinner from the power of Satan and translate him from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and life, and then deliver that same sinner from both the penalty and power of sin.

That, friend, is a miracle for God to take the stony heart and make it a heart of flesh through a supernatural act of regeneration by his spirit, which is the new birth. That is a miracle, hallelujah, and praise God. My God is a wonder-working God, and Jesus is not only worthy, he is worth it.

Let us pray.