I N t h e presen ce of a miracle — an angel of the Lord — Gideon asked, “Where are the miracles?” But let us not be too hard on Gideon. It was a sad day of defeat and bondage for Israel and Gideon could only ask, “ If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?” Give him credit for this much: he cared. He was no kin to your modem Pollyannas, whistling in the dark. He remembered better days and frankly inquired: “Where are the miracles of other times?” He would have God rend the mountains and come down as He used to do. Such a spirit does not displease God like the frothy cheerfulness o f men who have no burden for the times. The Bible heroes were a rather dour lot compared to the modern happiness boys but God blessed them. They who would build high must first dig deeply. Gideon may have had an inferior ity complex and may have needed a lot of advance proof so that he almost walked by sight instead of faith but God helped him along and He will help us along much more when we are in that mood than when we airily dismiss the troubles o f the hour as though a sleeping church and a lost world mat tered little after all. “Where are the miracles?” Gideon asked and it is a timely question today. Some time ago thirty thousand people crowded a New York park to see a miracle which failed to materialize. A little Cath olic boy said the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and had promised the opening of a well out of the rocks of a playground. Time magazine com mented: “ Joe did not quite realize it at first, but there were many other lonely, unhappy or troubled people who also wanted to see a vision. In the big city there were countless others who, like Joe, want ed something wonderful to happen.” Well, something wonderful has happened in this old world. God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son that whosoever believ- eth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is a miracle, the greatest of all, and more important than anything that may happen today or tomorrow is this miracle of the Gospel. We need not ask, “Where are the miracles?” when we have a miracle among us all the time. Yet in connection with this supernatural Gos pel we may well ask Gideon’s question. Many dis tressed Christians, burdened over all that has be fallen us, are asking: “WHERE ARE THE MIR ACLES IN MODERN PREACHING?” A lot of modern preaching proclaims no miracle. What for ever distinguishes the Christian message from all others is just this: it is a message about a miracle. Christ died for our sins and rose again. That is the Gospel and that is miracle. Here is the issue today between modernism and fundamentalism. Liberalism denies the miraculous and would ex plain away the supernatural. Jesus Christ, the Son
Where Are The Miracles?
by Dr. Vance Havner
o f God, virgin-born, living a sinless life, dying a substitutionary, atoning death, rising bodily from the dead and coming again personally—that is a miracle. Listening to some preaching today, one might well ask Gideon’s question. The Gospel is not only miraculous in what it is but in what it does. It produces regenerated men and women, not merely improved over what they used to be but new creatures in Christ Jesus. Every Christian is a miracle; he is a child of God by a new birth from above; he is an heir of God and a citizen of heaven. The Christian life is su pernatural, lived by a miraculous power, the power of Christ’s resurrection. It begins by an act of the Holy Spirit which is a miracle; and it never ends, which is another miracle. Modernistic preaching produces no such phe nomena. The best it can do is to turn out a species of social reformer with a religious whitewash. On the other hand there is a lot o f sound preaching that has little to show because while sound in doc trine it has facts without fire, it is not in the power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. To be sure, visible results are not the only test o f true preaching. But faith cometh by hearing and hear ing by the Word of God and when a miraculous message is preached in miraculous power something
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