Miracles, True and False
By R. C. Porter
Having learned that God is the Creator of the universe and the Author of nature, it is natural that men should expect to trace through all of his operations in his revelation of his almighty acts what they term miracles. Man, by observing the animal creation below him, sees in it an inability to perform acts of knowledge and power equal to his own. But being himself the workmanship of an almighty Creator, it is but natural that he should recognize in God a being whose every act is a supernatural manifestation of wisdom and power. If in giving his word of divine revelation to man, in which he reveals his rightful claim upon man's worship, he manifested no power superior to that possessed by man, the authenticity of such a revelation would at once be questioned. Man would expect that a revelation of a system of religion which came from God would be accompanied by miraculous manifestations in keeping with his character. So generally is it recognized that a system of religion to be genuine must be attended by miracles, that every impostor who has arisen and undertaken to delude the world into following his religious system, from the days of Elymas, the sorcerer, to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, of the Mormon system, has undertaken to associate evidence of miracles with his religious scheme. All heathen systems from the days of the Ephesians, who worshiped an image supposed to have fallen down from Jupiter, back to the first apostate system, were founded or supported by supposed miracles. In giving a divine revelation to man, it was therefore necessary that God should manifest himself in miracles in connection with that revelation and the religious system it proclaimed. It must also present miracles of such a character as to make it possible to distinguish them from the jugglery of magicians of false systems. In no other way could the Lord be recognized as the only true God, and his religious system the only true worship. Thus, from the very beginning of the writing of the Bible in the days of Moses, God's religious system was arrayed against that of Egypt, and both systems were supported by miracles. Exodus 7 to 12. God's first miracle in this instance was manifested in the destruction of the serpents, which in the Egyptian system were objects of worship. The second miracle was directed against the river Nile, which was adored as an object of worship. Its refreshing waters, which they had regarded as sacred and life-giving, were turned to blood, and its fish, also regarded as deities, were turned to putrefaction. The third miracle caused all their sacred waters to send forth multitudes of frogs to infest their whole land and become an annoyance, and caused the people to detest the conduct of their gods. The fourth miracle brought lice in such abundance throughout the land as to prohibit all Egyptians from worshiping their gods. Gleig says, “No one could approach the altars of Egypt, upon whom so impure an insect harbored.” During this plague no act of Egyptian worship could be performed. It was this that caused their magicians to cry out, “This is the finger of God.” The fifth miracle was designed to undermine the trust of the Egyptians in Beelzebub, or the fly god. He was worshiped as the protector against swarms of flies. This miracle of swarms of flies gave evidence of his inability to protect the people as they had believed him able to do, and it revealed the God of the Hebrews as the only God in whose protection men may safely trust. The sixth miracle was directed against their debasing system of brute worship. By it their sacred bull, ram, heifer, goat, and many other sacred animals were destroyed. In this act was revealed the power of the living God in contrast to the impotence of their now dead brute deities. The seventh miracle was directed against the custom of offering human sacrifices to propitiate the wrath of Typhon, the evil principle. The ashes of the sacrifice were taken up and strewn to the winds by the officiating priests in order that evil might be averted wherever a particle of the ashes fell. Moses took a handful of ashes from the furnace and threw it into the air, according to their custom, and it became boils and blains upon all the people of the land. Since neither king nor priest escaped, while Moses and Aaron stood among them protected, the supremacy of the God of the Hebrews was again vindicated. The eighth and tenth miracles, like the two against the worship of the river Nile, were directed against the worship of false deities, Isis and Osiris. These two idols, next to the river Nile, were the supreme objects of Egyptian worship. They originally represented the sun and the moon, and were supposed to control light and darkness, and the elements of nature. So great was the destruction by hail and so unusual the lightnings and the thunder that Pharaoh cried out, “Entreat the Lord (for it is enough) that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail.” Then followed the ninth miracle, directed against Serapis, whose office was to protect the land of Egypt from locusts. At the word of Moses the land was filled with locusts, and the houses, from least to greatest throughout all the land, were invaded by the pest. Only upon the entreaty of Moses could they be removed. Again the true God gave the people of Egypt an evidence of his power over their god in whom they trusted for deliverance from locusts. Then followed the tenth miracle, in which the gods, Isis and Osiris, were again assailed by three days of darkness that could be felt, spreading over all the land, so that the people saw not one another for three days. Thus the true God summoned nature, in which they trusted, to witness to him as the only true and living God. The eleventh and last of this series of miracles was an exhibition of divine judgment upon the Egyptian nation for their mistreatment of the Israelites who had so long served as bondmen among them. They had slain the offspring of the Israelites at birth as the last high-handed outrage upon them, and God now, as an example of infinite justice, recompensed their evil course upon their own heads in righteous retribution. That night the angel of death passed through every home, and from the lowliest cot to the kingly palace, the first-born in every house was slain. From every family in Egypt there arose such a wail of sorrow and defeat as their nation had never before witnessed. God had given ample evidence, to the Egyptians and to the Israelites, to teach them that he was not only a God of power, but a God of justice. Though he bears long with those who insult and abuse his people, the day of retribution awaits all injustice. By these miraculous exhibitions of divine power the Lord says, When Pharaoh shall say, “Show a miracle” (Ex. 7:9), “against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.” Ex. 12:12. Reviewing these miracles, in which the power of all the gods of Egypt was challenged and ignominiously defeated, Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, said, “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.” Ex. 18:11. Thus the true God was unquestionably vindicated.