Randy Green's Blog - Posts Tagged "life-after-death"
Lord Houdini? – Part 1
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
Lord Houdini? – Part 2
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenecian widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, to King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deteuronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenecian widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, to King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deteuronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
Lord Houdini? – Part 1
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all-time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all-time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
Lord Houdini? – Part 2
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenician widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, to King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenician widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, to King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
Lord Houdini? – Part 1
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all-time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
Most of us have heard of Harry Houdini, the all-time greatest magician of the world. He performed some amazing feats, feats which captured the attention of people having even the severest cases of attention deficit disorder. His name will never be forgotten.
It might pique your curiosity to know that Houdini began his magic career with card tricks. He dubbed himself the king of cards. After a time Houdini moved on to being an escape artist. He would get himself out of handcuffs, locked rooms, even jail, while onlookers watched dumbfounded.
When copycats began imitating his tricks, Houdini upped the ante. He created routines where he was locked in a large metal milk container filled with water, while being handcuffed with his hands behind his back. It made his show even more derring-do, the fact that his life was in the balance. No doubt about it. Houdini is still the master of magic today. We cannot help but marvel at his genius with magic.
In our text today we have a widowed mother doing some serious marveling herself. It would seem she had an only son who became deathly ill, ill to the point of actually dying. This woman lived in the region of Sidon along the Mediterranean coast bordering northern Israel. She was not an Israelite. She did not know King YHWH of Israel. She was a Phoenician heathen, though she obviously respected the Israelites and their God.
How do we know that? Well, she knew Elijah the Tishbite, that’s how. She even prepared a room for Elijah in her home, so that he would have a place to stay when he was in the vicinity. But how did a heathen woman outside Israel come to know Elijah anyway?
It’s like this. As retaliation to King Ahab and Jezebel for practicing Baal worship in northern Israel, the Lord sent His prophet Elijah to announce an indefinite drought on the land. Jezebel was herself a Sidonian king’s daughter, and the Sidonians worshiped the idol Baal. So after King Ahab married the evil wench Jezebel, she brought Baal worship into Israel with her and promoted it to the Israelites.
During the famine the Lord hid Elijah on the east bank at the brook Cherith for a while, employing ravens to bring him his food. The brook served as his source of water. When the brook dried up the Lord directed Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and stay with the widow for the remainder of the famine. That is how a heathen widow in Sidon came to know the godly prophet Elijah.
Oh, dear. We are out of time again. So we will spend some time alone with the Lord now and continue this story in our next study. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
Lord Houdini? – Part 2
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” [1 Kings 17:24]
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenician widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
We concluded our last study by noting how a heathen Phoenician widow knew Elijah and His God. Now let’s continue with the point to the story.
While Elijah was staying with this widow, her son died. She cried to Elijah and Elijah cried to the Lord, King YHWH of Israel. To make a long story short, the Lord answered Elijah’s prayer affirmatively and raised the deceased boy out of death. Elijah then returned the boy to his mother alive and well.
Dear friends, we recognize this as a miracle. Some folks refuse to accept miracles, so they deny this account ever happened. Others do accept miracles as real and praise the Lord for this one and for others. All this is well and good, but the Lord isn’t Harry Houdini.
The Lord doesn’t perform tricks of the trade. The Lord performs genuine prima facie miracles. He suspends the “laws of nature”, His normal method of working, in order to do something contrary to the norm. This is something we Christians can easily misunderstand or forget. And when we do so, we wind up seeking miracles to tickle our fancy. We search for Lord Houdini instead of Lord Jesus.
In the story of today’s Bible verse the Phoenician mother unwittingly blurted out this Biblical teaching about miracles. She cried to the Lord’s prophet and received her dead son back alive again, a miracle. Her response was to state that the miracle proved Elijah was a prophet of the one true God, and that Elijah’s words were the Word of God.
That, my dear friends, is the purpose in the Lord performing miracles. Miracles serve as a witness that the Lord is the one true God. They are not given to evoke oohs and aahs from us and leave us gasping at Lord Houdini and His magic tricks. They are given to evoke genuflection from us, so that we surrender our hearts to Him in worship and service.
Let’s get together with the Lord now and hold a serious conversation with Him. Let’s surrender our lives to Him and begin the journey of a new life in Christ. And may the name of the Lord be praised in the doing of this.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
