Stop Calling Providence a Miracle

Stop Calling Providence a Miracle 

Introduction

I think I need to leave Facebook. Or at least start unfriending people who post drivel and sensationalism on my timeline. 

Case in point. A video was linked to a post on my timeline. The text used to encourage people to go watch the video is this: “Dr from Shofar Worcester prayed for dead patient who came back to life after 50 minutes. Watch her testimony here!”

Now based on the comment what would one logically conclude. This person was dead for almost an hour, a doctor who is part of a church in Worcester prayed for her to rise from the dead and thats what happened! Awesome miracle! Praise the Lord!

Is that what the video interview says? Is that comment accurate as pertains to the facts of the video commented on by the poster?

A disclaimer of sorts

Can and does God still do miracles? I believe, yes! Can and does God do these miracles sometimes in direct answer to prayer? Yes! Is there anything we can extrapolate based on miracles that seem to happen in response to prayer regarding the Charismatic/Pentecostal doctrine of the continuation of the apostolic sign gifts today? No I do not believe so. However for the sake of this article I am going to assume that the doctrine is accurate and the sign gifts do indeed continue and I will even concede that all Christians can have access to these gifts. I do not personally believe this anymore but I will concede it for the sake of the point I wish to make. 

The video

First, watch the video (http://shofaronline.tv/videos/testimonies-20141112-shofar-stories-herma-hugo/)

It is a great story. I do not know this person but I have no reason to doubt the veracity of her testimony. I also have no way to verify it. That does not matter to me. I believe that her retelling of the facts in this testimony are accurate. First a few thoughts and questions. 

1) The doctor starts the video by saying that miracles happen every day but we seldom recognise them for what they are"

• Thus the doctor seems to think that what she is about to narrate was a miracle. Is it a miracle? Or just good doctoring? Or divine providence? 

2) The woman in question was at the hospital. 

• It is a known fact that many, even very serious injuries can be dealt with if the victim can get to a hospital quickly. So it stands to reason that if something happens to you IN the hospital you have a much better chance of surviving. 

3) The woman was being given CPR for 50 minutes by a team of medical staff. 

• This is interesting. I would assume that all involved were properly training in how to do CPR. Why did they keep at it for 50 minutes? I have no idea. A quick search on the internet is inconclusive but there was a WebMD article that gave the indication that 38 minute plus sessions of CPR can improve the patients chances of not having brain damage when fully revived. (http://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20131116/giving-cpr-for-more-than-30-minutes-may-be-worth-it?src=RSS_PUBLIC) Its one article. Is it true? Maybe. Maybe not. 

4) The doctor prayed for the woman.

• She is a Christian. She sees a person in dire straits. It stands to reason that she would pray for her. What did she pray? Please heal her? No. Please raise her back to life? No. The doctor indicates what she prayed for. She prayed for her soul. Since she stated seconds before that what she was unsure of what to pray because she did not know if the patient was a Christian or not, one can safely assume that when she says she was praying for her soul she meant that she was praying for the patients salvation. Yes it is an assumption but I think a valid one. Then she mentions she was praying in her tongue. What does that mean? Well it means that she was praying in her own personal prayer language. I have never really believed in this doctrine of the personal prayer language because it is not taught in Scripture and the verses used to justify it are taken out of context and twisted out of proportion to justify the doctrine. So in layman’s terms she was quietly speaking gibberish that she believes was an angelic language but which does not conform to any definition of a language. Is this a valid reason to infer that her prayer raised the dead? No. 

5) “She had signs she was brain dead”

• What does that mean? I am not a doctor. Could she have been brain dead? I have no idea. Could brain death at that point be a misdiagnosis? Possibly. Is there anything in the video testimony to indicate that the doctor in question or any other doctor involved was SURE that there was brain death. No. There seems to be none. And if there was no brain death, then where is the miracle? 

What is a miracle?

Before I comment further is might be useful to ask the question, “What is a miracle?”. 

Baker says “Event which may seem contrary to nature and which signifies an act in which God reveals himself to man.” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says “MIRACLES, SIGNS, WONDERS Events which unmistakably involve an immediate and powerful action of God designed to reveal His character or purposes”. Or Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, "Extraordinary events that manifest divine power, that are wonders to human understanding, and therefore what human beings perceive as signs from God”

So the definition of a miracle is something that God does that are wonders to human understanding. Does this testimony rise to that definition. I would have to say and I hope the reader would agree that it does not. There is good evidence that this lady survived due to good doctoring and all the medical staff involved are to be commended. Could God in His providence have decided to keep this woman alive even though she was so near death? Yes. I believe that is possible. It is clearly a miracle that CANNOT be explained in any other way. Most certainly not. 

When Jesus healed the dead son of the widow, he immediately got up. When Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter the mourners laughed at Jesus for saying she was sleeping for she was clearly dead. When in 2 Kings the men dumped the body they were carrying into Elisha’s tomb the body came back to life. Immediate and unmistakeable. No subsequent period of convalescence until full recovery. There is nothing similar in this testimony. 

Faith or credulity?

Someone might ask at this point, “Where is your faith, man? Why won’t you accept that God has done something miraculous you cessationist, you!”.

I would throw the question back by asking, “Why are you so quick to believe that it is a miracle, in spite of the facts to the contrary?”

I remember being in a church service where a video was shown about the plan to eventually implant everyone with a microchip for buying and selling re. the mark of the Beast from the book of Revelation. I heard later that many in that service were very worried because they thought it was going to happen VERY soon! How many times have we Christians (especially Charismatics) received an email link to an article about some dire threat to Christendom that 10 seconds at snopes.com would have revealed to be a hoax. When it comes to Charismatics and miracles I think the problem is worse. If you believe that God still does signs and wonders like you read in the Bible and you see that they are NOT everyday occurrences you may be temped to see any unusual event as a fulfilment of the belief in those miraculous signs. Faith is not blind. Faith does not ignore evidence. Credulity however believes in spite of the lack of evidence or even in the face of contrary evidence. 

Is the evidence in this specific case enough to warrant the claim of a miracle? No it is not. Should we praise God for this woman’s recovery? Absolutely. Should we praise God for giving us these doctors who performed their jobs admirably? Yes, yes and a thousand times yes! 

Conclusion

I would like to ask simply that we reserve the word “Miracle” for actual miraculous events. Do they happen? I believe they do. To use the word for things that are due to the normal operation of the universe or simply divine providence makes a mockery of the word, our witness for Jesus in the world and most importantly it makes a mockery of the God we serve. When He does a miracle we will KNOW it and even the critics will have to admit it. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day never doubted His miraculous signs. They killed Him anyway. Lets call a spade a spade, and a duck a duck and get out there and actually preach the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of looking under every doorknob for a miracle and then making videos about it to post on Facebook. Lets not follow the sensationalism of our time and rather be known as those who do not color the truth but tell it as it is!

Soli Deo Gloria