God's Miracles Series

God's Miracles

Often, just to stir up thoughts and inspirations on a particular topic, it's helpful to open an internet search of the New King James Version (NKJV) Bible just to find out how often the topical word appears. In support of this essay, the Hebrew term for “miracle” appeared, astonishingly, a mere 3 times in the Old Testament (OT) and just 14 times in the New Testament (NT).

This could lead one to believe that while many miracles were observed, believed, and accurately described, the term “miracle” was not used in their recorded testimony. Or possibly, the NKJV descriptive translations didn't exactly fit our modern day definition of the word “miracle.”

Have I confused you? Hopefully not.

Looking for a “less restricted” description, possibly with a more encompassing meaning, I have turned to the less formal, Easy-to-Read Bible. There, the term “miracle” occurred 84 times and thirty-nine times in the OT Testament and forty-five times in the NT.

So, considering those variances, how does a reliable dictionary describe “miracle”?

Known as the “Father of American Scholarship and Education.” Noah Webster was a lexicographer and language reformer who published his dictionary in 1825. Webster's online dictionary describes “miracle” as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” That's about as good of a definition anyone could expect from a dictionary. In Fact, at the time of the original publication, Noah Webster's dictionary was the only mainstream one with Biblical references. Webster was a devout Christian who believed that “Education is useless without the Bible.”

His dictionary contained more than 6,000 Bible references. Some of these references, such as the definition of marriage was, “a union exclusively between a man and a woman,” is a meaning current-day publishers and 'scholars' are trying to decimate.

But how many miracles do tried and true biblical scholars list? God has never stopped working miracles, and He still works miracles everyday. Shortly, you'll read a selection of 120 miracles documented in the Bible. Many of which the naysayers try to rationalize or explain away. Most of us would freely concede that contemporary conjurers can appear to change water into wine or a staff into a snake. But can they predict ten plagues and cause their effect to be endured only by certain portions of two populations residing in a kingdom? Of course not!

Can contemporary illusionists cause manna to fall from the heavens, in adequate amounts, to feed a wandering hoard of more than two million Israelites, counting 600,000 men plus women and children? Or repeat that act daily for forty years as needed?

Can modern magicians duplicate or science explain away the “long days” of Joshua and Hezekiah? Literally, the spin, tilt, and rotation of the earth, around our fixated sun, would have had to stop dead. All that without killing all humankind s the physics of kinetic energy stopped would explain.

After pursuing these next 120 verses, which I call the big miracles, we will visit the “small” miracles.

1. God's creation—of the universe, including plants, animals and humans. (Genesis 1-2)

2. Worldwide flood—God caused the destruction of the entire world by a divine flood and the miraculous preservation of 8 righteous people and saving the land-dwelling creatures. (Genesis 7-8)

3. God confused the language at Babel—a world of one language instantly transformed into a world of many languages. (Genesis 11:1-9)

4. Sinful cities destroyed—destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 19:24)

5. Supernatural death—Lot’s wife turned into a “pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:26)

6. Supernatural conception—by a very elderly Sarah and 100 year old Abraham at Gerar. (Genesis 21:1)

7. Elderly nursing mother—Sarah was also able to naturally nurse baby Isaac. (Genesis 21:7)

8. All water turned to blood—after which all fish died, and the river stank. (Exodus 7:14-25

9. Frog plague—god suddenly covered the land of Egypt with frogs, and later supernaturally killed them, leaving them to make Egypt again stink. (Exodus 8:2-14; psalms 78:45; 105:30)

10. Lice plague—all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:17-18)

11. Flies—God sent “grievous” swarms of flies upon all the people and houses of Egypt, covering even the ground, except in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelled fly-free. (Exodus 8:20-24)

12. Murrain suddenly killed Egypt's cattle. (Exodus 9:3-6)

13. The sixth plague—the Lord struck Egypt with boils and with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, which were not curable. (Deuteronomy 28:27)

14. Hail with fire and thunder—a warning was given of its coming. (Exodus 9:13-33).

15. Locusts—the plague of locusts, which covered all of Egypt, so that the land was darkened with them (Exodus 10:12-15). The Hebrew name of this insect, Arbeh, points to the “multitudinous” character of this visitation. Warning was given before this plague came. Again, the nearby land of Goshen was spared.