As I continue my series on miracles, our next topic is that God has mastery over his entire creation. This also includes the biological life forms He created including animals and plants. Throughout Biblical history, God used both animals and plants to prove He was indeed God to His people.
Twice, Jesus had Peter puts his nets down in a time a place when no fish should be caught and yet he had the biggest catches of his career. In the first instance, Peter was just being called to become a disciple and in the second, Jesus had just risen and Peter would be reinstated as a disciple. Peter was an expert fisherman. He knew when the fish were around and how to go after them. He did everything he knew to do to find the fish and caught nothing. Then Jesus comes around and tells him to drop the nets one more time and Peter, knowing that Jesus did not know a thing about fishing professionally, still believed Him and caught his greatest catches.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt, the Gospels made a point to address that it had never been ridden. Colts are young donkeys and this one had never been tamed. It is nearly impossible to ride an untamed donkey, yet this one carried Jesus without objection. He had mastery over animals.
In the Old Testament, God showed mastery over animals as well. He prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and carry him back to Nineveh. Exactly what kind of fish, we don’t know. Some have suggested a sperm whale, but we cannot say for sure.
He brought the animals that would be spared from the Flood to Noah. Noah didn’t have to go get them; God brought them to him. For surviving the Flood on the Ark, it’s likely a number of them went into hibernation or a low energy state. Many animals take shelter during storms, and when major disasters are about to take place the animals often flee their natural habitats or retreat to them. God may have put them into a subdued state to survive the Flood.
He gave one animal, a donkey, the power of speech. Balaam was supposed to be a priest of God, someone who knew God and spoke what His standards were to be. Yet, Balak king of Moab was able to buy him out. Balaam still refused to actually curse Israel, but the lure of money was too strong, so instead of directly speaking a curse on Israel, he told Balak how to get Israel to curse itself by getting them to sin against God. In one of the trips to Balak, the Angel of the Lord blocked Balaam’s path, yet only the donkey could see Him. After receiving multiple beatings, the donkey spoke and that is when Balaam saw the Angel of the Lord.
In another instance, a gang of hoodlums mocked and jeered the prophet Elisha shortly after Elijah was taken up to heaven. These 42 youths (who were not little kids) didn’t merely mock Elisha for being bald but were actually telling him to go up to heaven with his master and leave them alone. Elisha merely cursed them, and two bears came out of the woods and mauled them to death.
God controls the animals. In my personal life, I have not seen an incident where I knew that God directed an animal to act in an unusual way for a purpose. I’ve heard some stories across the internet, like an ant carrying a contact lens because a rock climber had lost it on a mountain and couldn’t see without it. I have no idea of the validity of that story, but I’ve heard similar stories. I know of one incident where a couple of missionaries in the jungles of South America were captured by guerilla soldiers and on a Sunday, a group of birds came in and sang for the duration of the church service they were supposed to be in. What I do know though is that the animals, while left to their instincts, will obey God upon command.
Plants are the same. While classified as biological life, they do not have the breath of life as animals have. God has mastery over them too. When I wrote about how God has mastery over time, I talked about Day 3 of Creation. The plants grew to maturity in one day. That was a creative, miraculous act that does not follow the normal patterns of life and growth we measure today.
Jesus cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit when he expected it to. All he did was speed up the inevitable curse of death that was already upon it. God also made a tree grown for Jonah, then withered it away in a day. Jonah was complaining about the heat while watching for Nineveh to perish, then he complained about the tree dying. God had to deal with him on that issue.
God is the one who controls and has mastery over crops and our food supply. He used Joseph to foretell to Pharaoh about a seven-year famine which would follow seven years of bounty. He blessed the crops of those who were obedient, but often put a curse on them when sin abounded.
God has mastery over the animals and plants. After Adam sinned, God cursed the ground so plants would produce thorns and thistles. Ever notice how with the tiniest bit of rain, weeds grow exponentially but your desired garden battles to produce anything? We can thank sin for that. After the Flood, God put the fear of man in the animals, because He gave us permission to eat them. But the day will come when that will be undone. Predation will cease, crops will produce what they used to produce, and there will never be a shortage. I look forward to the day when animal and plant life is restored not merely to their original function but to an even better form.
Next week, I’ll look at how God has mastery over inanimate objects before wrapping up this series about the one greatest miracle of all time: the Resurrection of Christ.
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