Miracles - God's Power On Display

Sermon Outline

By

Pastor Paddick Van Zyl

Miracles

7 Aug 2014

Introduction:

Do miracles still happen today? What is God’s take on miracles? How may we define a miracle: According to the dictionary-?

Miracle (noun) :

‘an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.

"the miracle of rising from the grave"

Synynoms: Supernatural phenomenon, Prodigy, Sign

a remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences.

"it was a miracle that more people hadn't been killed"

an exceptional product or achievement, or an outstanding example of something.

"a machine which was a miracle of design"

For a biblical definition of what a miracle is, we look at what Kris Samons of Probe Ministries says:

‘Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws. Bakers’s Dictionary of the Bible define 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. It is very interesting that a common word used for miracle in the New Testament can also be translated “sign”. A miracle is a sign that God uses to point to Himself; the same way we follow signs to find a museum or an airport.’

Text:

2 Kings 4:1-37 Living Bible (TLB)

4 One day the wife of one of the seminary students came to Elisha to tell him of her husband’s death. He was a man who had loved God, she said. But he had owed some money when he died, and now the creditor was demanding it back. If she didn’t pay, he said he would take her two sons as his slaves.

2 “What shall I do?” Elisha asked. “How much food do you have in the house?”

“Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil,” she replied.

3 “Then borrow many pots and pans from your friends and neighbors!” he instructed.

4 “Go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Then pour olive oil from your jar into the pots and pans, setting them aside as they are filled!”

5 So she did. Her sons brought the pots and pans to her, and she filled one after another!

6 Soon every container was full to the brim!

“Bring me another jar,” she said to her sons.

“There aren’t any more!” they told her. And then the oil stopped flowing!

7 When she told the prophet what had happened, he said to her, “Go and sell the oil and pay your debt, and there will be enough money left for you and your sons to live on!”

8 One day Elisha went to Shunem. A prominent woman of the city invited him in to eat, and afterwards, whenever he passed that way, he stopped for dinner.

9 She said to her husband, “I’m sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy prophet.

10 Let’s make a little room for him on the roof; we can put in a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, and he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”

11-12 Once when he was resting in the room he said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman I want to speak to her.”

When she came, 13 he said to Gehazi, “Tell her that we appreciate her kindness to us. Now ask her what we can do for her. Does she want me to put in a good word for her to the king or to the general of the army?”

“No,” she replied, “I am perfectly content.”

14 “What can we do for her?” he asked Gehazi afterwards.

He suggested, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”

15-16 “Call her back again,” Elisha told him.

When she returned, he talked to her as she stood in the doorway. “Next year at about this time you shall have a son!”

“O man of God,” she exclaimed, “don’t lie to me like that!”

17 But it was true; the woman soon conceived and had a baby boy the following year, just as Elisha had predicted.

18 One day when her child was older, he went out to visit his father, who was working with the reapers. 19 He complained about a headache and soon was moaning in pain. His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”

20 So he took him home, and his mother held him on her lap; but around noontime he died.