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Do you believe in miracles?
Well, if you believe
that the dead are going
to come back to life in the resurrection,
then you certainly do, because by definition,
a miracle is a wonderful event
that is thought to be caused
by the power of God.
And, really,
only Jehovah God could have conceived
of the idea
of bringing the dead back to life.
The apostle Paul
was a firm believer in resurrection.
When a young man named Eutychus
fell from a third-story window,
the physician Luke, who was on the scene,
pronounced him dead.
But with God’s power,
Paul, who was also there,
raised the young man back to life.
It was sometime after that,
when Paul was on trial
before the governor of Judea
and he was defending
his faith in Christ Jesus,
that Paul stated what is recorded
in today’s text.
So let’s read it at Acts 24:15.
It says: “And I have hope toward God,
“which hope these men also look forward to,
“that there is going to be a resurrection
of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”
This hope that Paul spoke of
is not merely wishful thinking
or blind optimism.
True hope has real substance to it
because it’s solidly based
on faith in Jehovah God’s promises.
Twice, before Jesus performed resurrections,
he told the onlookers that if they had faith,
they would believe
such a miracle could happen.
For example, at Luke 8:50,
when Jairus’ daughter died,
Jesus told him:
“Have no fear, only have faith,
and she will be saved.”
And she was
because Jesus resurrected her on the spot.
Later at John 11:25,
when talking to Martha
about her deceased brother, Lazarus,
Jesus told her:
“I am the resurrection and the life.
“The one who exercises faith in me,
even though he dies,
will come to life.”
And then he proceeded
to raise his dead friend back to life.
Faith brightens and strengthens
our hope in the resurrection.
How so?
Paul was the one
who was inspired to define faith.
So let’s see how
what he wrote at Hebrews 11:1
fits this matter
of believing in the miracle of resurrection.
As it states there,
faith has two important aspects.
First, “faith is the assured expectation
of what is hoped for.”
If you have faith,
you firmly believe
that everything Jehovah says is true
and will be fulfilled.
In his written Word,
he tells us of nine resurrections
that had taken place in the past.
Three are recorded
in the Hebrew Scriptures,
and the rest are
in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
Since we know it’s impossible for God to lie
and he is the One
who inspired the Bible writers
to record those miraculous events,
we have no reason to doubt.
We can expect that our dead loved ones
will be brought back to life.
Second, faith is “the evident demonstration
of realities that are not seen.”
In some of our videos,
we portray Biblical scenes
of the dead being resurrected in the past,
and we show dramatizations
of the future earthly resurrection.
But that is not the same
as seeing with our own eyes
an actual demonstration
of someone being brought back to life.
Is there no convincing evidence
that we can see
that shows it is possible
to put life back into the lifeless?
Well, there is,
and Jesus pointed us in the right direction
in his Sermon on the Mount.
You might want to open your Bibles
to Matthew chapter 6.
And remember,
there he was encouraging his listeners
to “stop being anxious”
about their material needs of life.
Instead, he told them
that if they ‘kept on seeking
‘first the Kingdom and God’s righteousness,
their material necessities
would be provided.’
Now think again of those two aspects of faith
mentioned at Hebrews 11:1.
What did Jesus do
to strengthen their faith in that promise?
At Matthew 6:32, he said:
“Your heavenly Father knows
that you need all these things.”
So here was God’s Son
promising the people
that his Father in heaven
would care for their physical needs,
thus giving them an ‘assured expectation
of what was hoped for.’
Jesus also focused attention
on ‘an evident demonstration
of that reality.’
In verse 26,
he said
to “observe intently the birds of heaven;
“they do not sow seed or reap
or gather into storehouses,
yet [Jehovah] feeds them.”
In verse 28, he said to “take a lesson
from the lilies of the field,
“how they grow;
they do not toil, nor do they spin,”
yet, Jehovah clothes them.
That was proof
that God can feed and clothe us
when we put his interests first.
Now, speaking of the lilies of the field,
there is another lesson we can learn
about how they grow
that can bolster our hope
in the resurrection,
that life can be put back in the lifeless.
The study note says that these lilies
“may have included
a variety of lilylike flowers,
such as tulips, hyacinths,
irises, and gladiolus”
—all of which have something in common
about how they grow.
How do they grow?
Well, maybe a little botany lesson
would help.
They are perennials that grow,
not from a seed,
but from a bulb similar to crocuses.
They essentially die off every year
and come back to life in the next season.
Now, this is a tulip bulb.
And it has
within this marvelous little package
nearly everything that’s needed
for the plant to grow again.
Within this, we can find the roots, the stem,
the leaves, the bud, and a food supply.
For most of the year,
including the long, cold winter months,
bulbs are in a dormant state underground,
meaning they’re not actively growing
but can be reactivated.
Now, when the ground thaws out in the spring,
the bulb begins to sprout.
And that sprout, then,
will keep growing up through the dirt
until it becomes visible above ground.
And then all onlookers
see an evident demonstration
that its life has been renewed.
Now, there are two lessons, then,
that we’ve just learned
from the lilies of the field
and how they grow.
The first is how Jehovah clothes them
(assuring us he can care
for our material needs)
and how Jehovah created these plants
to come back to life every year
(assuring us that he can also restore life
to humans who have died).
So this evident demonstration seen in nature
coupled with the assured expectation
that Jehovah gives us in the Bible
of the coming resurrection
brightens our hope of seeing our loved ones
come back to life in due season.
Of course, in the case of humans,
Jehovah retains in his infinite memory
everything about each person,
including their complete DNA
with which to recreate their new body
so that when they are resurrected,
they’ll be the same persons they were
before they died.
They’ll look, speak, and think
in the same way as they did before,
being recognizable both to themselves
and to those who knew them.
Please open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 26
—Isaiah 26—
where we find a vivid picture
painted by the prophet Isaiah
of the miracle of resurrection;
it’s in verse 19.
It says: “Your dead will live.
“My corpses will rise up.
“Awake and shout joyfully,
you residents in the dust!
“For your dew is
as the dew of the morning,
“and the earth
will let those powerless in death
come to life.”
What a beautiful picture!
In fact, The New English Bible
just starts off the verse by saying:
“They that sleep in the earth
will awake and shout for joy.”
How we look forward to the time
when these words
are fulfilled in the new world
and we can see and hug
our loved ones again!
Now, think of this
when you’re out walking in the spring
and you see the lilies of the field
coming back to life.
Now, here’s another interesting verse
in Psalm 27,
where the psalmist David
wrote a beautiful statement
of the future
that we can hold dear to our hearts.
This is Psalm 27, starting with verse 13:
“Where would I be if I did not have faith
“that I would see Jehovah’s goodness
in the land of the living?
“Hope in Jehovah;
be courageous and strong of heart.
Yes, hope in Jehovah.”
Why can we have such hope
that we will see our loved ones again
“in the land of the living?”
It’s because we have faith
in what the apostle Paul said:
“There is going to be a resurrection.”

Robert Ciranko: Do You Believe in Miracles? (Acts 24:15)