BIBLE RECORDS | 124 MIRACLES (34)

1. What are "Miracles"?

a) Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws. Baker’s Dictionary of the Bible defines 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.

b) Miracles are also known as Signs and Wonders.

c) Here we have one of the 124 miracles recorded in the Bible.

2. Miracle 34: The SUN AND MOON STAYED MOTIONLESS (longer day) to enable the Israelites to win a crucial battle (Joshua 10:12-14). 

a) The Sun and Moon stayed motionless.

Joshua 10:12-14 New King James Version (NKJV)

¹² Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel:

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon;

 
And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.”
¹³ So the sun stood still,
And the moon stopped,
Till the people had revenge
Upon their enemies.

Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. ¹⁴ And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.

b) Sun - Hebrew: shemesh

i) The sun is first mentioned along with the moon as the two great luminaries of heaven (Genesis 1:14-18).

ii) By their motions and influence they were intended to mark and divide times and seasons.

iii) God is the ultimate source of all light.

@1. “And God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’” (Genesis 1:3)

iv) His light shown on Earth from the first day Creation, before the sun was created. The sun was created AFTER the universe, Earth, stars, and plants on the 4th day of Creation (Genesis 1:14-18). The purpose of this order may have been to affirm that the sun was not the source of life and divine power, as later claimed by many ancient Satanic religions that sprung from Babel (Babylon) and worshipped the sun as god. The worship of the sun was one of the oldest forms of false religion (Job 31:26-27), and was common among the Egyptians and Chaldeans and other pagan nations. 
Adrammelech was the male god representing the sun worshipped by the Sepharvaim, who colonized Samaria.

v) The Jews were warned against this form of idolatry (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; compare 2 Kings 23:11; Jeremiah 19:13). 

c) Moon - Hebrew: yareah, from its paleness (Ezra 6:15), and lebanah, the “white” (Song of Songs 6:10; Isaiah 24:23).

i) The moon was appointed by the Creator to be, with the sun, “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Genesis 1:14-16)

ii) A lunation was, among the Jews, the period of a month, and several of their festivals were held on the day of the new moon.

iii) The moon is frequently referred to along with the sun (Joshua 10:12; Psalms 72:5, 7, 17; 89:36-37; Ecclesiastes 12:2; Isa. 24:23, etc.), and also by itself (Psalms 8:3; 121:6).

iv) The great brilliance of the moon in Eastern countries led to its being early an object of idolatrous worship (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; Job 31:26), a form of idolatry against which the Jews were warned (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3). They, however, fell into this idolatry, and offered incense (2 Kings 23:5; Jeremiah 8:2), and also cakes of honey, to the moon (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-19, 25).

d) Long Day

i) LONG DAY—The sun and moon stayed, lengthening the day so that the Israelites could win a crucial battle (Joshua 10:12-14)

ii) LONG DAY AND THE SHADOW OF THE SUN GOES BACK TEN DEGREES on the sun-dial of Ahaz in Jerusalem to prove God’s intent and power to sick King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:9-11)