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summarize this to 1800 words: Before sharing short versions of present-day miracles, in hopes of dispelling doubts we’ve all had at times about God or what He does and doesn’t do in our day, I want to address the topic itself.
A. Like many who attend conservative Bible schools and seminaries, I had some professors teach & point us to books concluding that the miracles of the Apostles’ days concluded at their deaths. We won’t take time to address arguments, but a primary one would be that miracles in the New Testament were signs; God’s way of verifying that the Apostles and their writings were truly from Him therefore the purpose for them has ceased. Makes sense, although it’s not 100% correct in light of reality.
B. In my western bubble, this “cessation of miracles” viewpoint seemed possible. But occasionally, as my exposure to world missions increased, I’d hear a miracle story, usually from a distant and spiritually dark land. But it was far from firsthand and how can I be sure it’s all true? Then I would chance upon some kind of overt evidence of an active evil spiritual world. There were eyewitness experiences of occult activity related by fellow Faith church youth group members, as we negotiated gatherings of all kinds of public-school kids with no constructive agenda. I’ve also seen it personally, later in life.
C. I wondered about these things. I always felt conflicted over the “cessation” teachings versus what seemed like existential realities. It’s similar to the feeling you get switching back and forth between conservative vs liberal news sources these days….you know SOMEbody’s wrong! :-D
D. I suspect that teaching and books that preclude God’s activity thru miracles today were first motivated by wild & crazy things happening in God’s name. Fraudulent TV & Crusade healers, entire denominations seemingly focused on seeing or experiencing miracles to the exclusion of seriously dealing with the Scriptures and focusing on the disciplines that lead to true holiness and humble service in Jesus’ name. It’s not hard to understand that as a motive to say God isn’t doing miracles today. It can be confusing to discern between what God does and what people falsely claim He has done. But the fact that there are charlatans does not function as a reason to dismiss realities. Impostors can be found in the New Testament, but there was never the slightest hint that anyone was entitled to doubt the works of God because of that. In fact, denying or crediting God’s work to someone or something else was not taken well by Jesus. You can study that one on your own.
E. Plus, all the books on the subject are written in our western context, where clear miracles can seem absent. Why might that be? We lead a Home Group at our church in FL. Recently, during a read-thru of the Gospels, someone asked why there were so many instances of demon possession in the relatively small area where all the Gospel action occurred, and if that’s a real thing why don’t we see it here and now? My short, speculative answer had to do with our Christian heritage and comparatively broad presence of Christians in the west. Ya’ know, maybe a part of believers being salt and light we’re not even aware of. Plus, we’re surrounded by multitudes of churches. These might be reasons miracles as signs are few and far between in America. Miracles in our context are seemingly limited to incidents like those brought to everyone’s attention by a movie like Breakthrough (the kid who fell thru the ice and had a very stubborn Christian mama). When something happens like the Buffalo Bill’s Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest during a game in January (ppt picture), Americans don’t set up idols and pray to them; they don’t go sit in ashes or (pic of UK PMinister) light more incense outside their doors or by household shrines, or go sacrifice a fine chicken. What do we Americans do???...take a knee. Most start praying to God, and sometimes to Jesus, His Son, even those who live like He doesn’t even exist. We Christians were amazed and pleased to see prayers offered by NFL commentators in the name of Jesus on national TV. And some felt those millions of prayers over days gained a miracle in how that story ended.
Our cultural norms, language, and morals came from the Bible. Shoot, virtually every movie made today takes His name in vain, in various forms, just as part of our entertainment! We don’t need sign miracles on top of everything else to draw our attention to the Lord, or affirm He exists as the one, true God. We know He’s there, we just don’t all love and therefore obey Him (Jn 14:21), to our own peril.
So perhaps these things explain the scarcity of miracles here. We shouldn’t need them for at least one primary reason they occurred in the book of Acts and the Gospels, and at the front edges…the hardest places…of Jesus’ Great Commission to take His Gospel to every tribe, tongue and nation on the globe.
F. Some of us probably need assurance that our doubts about God or what He does are not unique to us. In fact, we’d be very unique if doubts didn’t exist. READ Jn 11:1-16 (shorten & say I did that “just for time”). Thomas—the same disciple who later doubted Jesus' resurrection—seems convinced this is a suicide mission. All the same, he is willing to go, apparently resigned to his fate. Or, at least, he feels the need to express some "gallows humor" about what’s happening.
READ Jn 11:17-37. NOBODY here suspects what Jesus is about to do. They are doing the only thing they can do in their natural human state...grieving, saying "if only..." They’re naturally saying, “It's over! It's too late! Why did Jesus hang back and let this happen when He could have prevented it?” Mary and Martha were like us, in that they both believed Jesus was the Son of God, capable of anything. But it never entered their minds He might have a way to resolve things they wouldn’t imagine! But He did, He said this sad situation was going to be used by God to again demonstrate Jesus is the Son of God and God deserves glory, not disappointment. And After this dramatic, public miracle of raising Lazarus from the after days and entombment, I'll bet they never again judged a situation by its appearance if Jesus was involved. SAME WITH THOMAS, later, in John 20:24-29... Jesus was crucified and as dead as could be. It's over. The dream has vanished in confusing defeat. “That's it!” Perfectly normal for Thomas to think like this, but still it was errant, and after he recognized and bowed before the risen Christ there was no more doubt, no more judging things according to how they seem at the moment. Thomas later becaue arguably the greates church planter at the most extreme distances of all the Apostles. Wish I had time for that presentation too!
Did God always do what people might have hoped for? No, never has or will. Mike, the YFC staffer who saw the likely angel rip the door off his bus to rescue a load of kids, just lost his wife to cancer in her 50s. We all prayed for a miracle, but it wasn’t God’s will and nobody who trusts Him fully is upset with God about that…she is with the Lord now and wouldn’t come back if she could.
G. Those who have been interested in our ministry a long time, and who have a good memory, may recall a bit of this, but it’s a perfect example of the reasons God still does supernatural things with regularity in the world’s dark places: (Saj Ghanakan’s testimony & pictures *)
“This story of ‘the voice’ is extremely common among those in the most resistant and Gospel-deprived religions and regions” – A considerable percentage of salvation testimonies from these parts of the world include some kind of vision or dream that pointed them toward a person who would give them a Bible. There are so many instances of this that some believers have a Bible or prepared response for when they are approached like this. Sometimes the dream or vision will just strongly influence the person to seek out who Jesus is. I love to reflect on the occasion when the Jesus film (picture of DVD or whatever) was being shown in a small Uzbekhistan community. Hard nation, basically closed to the Gospel, with a jail in the desert for people who illegally share about God with a young person. But locals showed this movie about the life of Christ, presumably in a rural tribal area. During the Transfiguration scene, as Jesus wears a gleaming white head covering and His appearance brightens, an older man suddenly jumped up and started shouting, “That’s Him! That’s the Man who came to me in my dreams!” Can you imagine the joyous response to the Gospel that evening? People in these places know it’s a great risk to become a Christian, but when you know for sure this is the real God, the real Savior, nothing else matters, right? It’s the truth! Why believe lies any longer? Here’s the link to a folder where I uploaded 2 true stories, thoroughly verified, dramatized as short videos: https://tinyurl.com/actstoday (put it on a slide… “they aren’t high resolution but maybe you can google the titles to find them online if you want”) Has it been like this the last 1800 years of Christian history? I don’t know, but if not, it may be another indicator that the next big piece in God’s plan for the ages is nearly upon us…perhaps He is hastening and intensifying His promise that people from every tongue and tribe will be in His Kingdom…people in the final Gospel frontiers who are least likely to hear the Good News of Jesus. I think some postulating is allowed in a seminar, vs in the pulpit, right? :)
H. Something should also be said about miracles that aren’t completely overt. INCIDENTS THAT COULD BE MIRACLES OR NOT.
i. Bill’s mailbox trip “i’m thru, lord, if there’s nothing in there” then $10 and tearful repentance and ‘i will never do that again’ and he became the yfc staff person with 2nd most years of service – there’s a verse that talks about how god’s kindness can lead us to repentance. Maybe sher’s son & water truck wheel?
ii. Bill’s lost plane ticket?
iii. Crouches & my vw bug story. Could have been vapor lock. Would have been the only time it ever hap’d. It’s a crazy story, i know. But i’ve always felt a lack of ease in chalking it up to coincidence.
iv. There’s a balance, but as I age and experience more of life, I’d personally rather err [“air”] on the side of praising God for what really seems to be a special intervention, than be a habitual skeptic. In Jn 10:37,38 Jesus said, “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” When miracles happen in the Bible, we often see that people “praised God.” We’re talking about God’s glory here. I’m not sure it’s good to always seek to dismiss apparent special interventions, by inevitably deciding in favor of extremely unlikely “explanations” - wild coincidence. If my first and final judgment of a likely miracle is to dismiss it, or assume the person sharing their story is a sensationalist or maybe crazy, God dislikes this attitude, it smacks of pride, and Jesus warned against it. The pharisees in Jesus’ day denied or disdained Jesus’ miracles, and He was very displeased. Instead of giving God glory for His works, they denied Him that glory.
v. Perhaps this is another part of the reason we don’t see more miracles in the western world. We seem inherently driven to figure everything out, to identify natural, scientific reasons for everything. And by the time we do all our logical extrapolations, we move on and fail to acknowledge God’s work and give Him glory. We shouldn’t be naïve, jumping to label everything a miracle, but on the other hand it’s not good to dismiss God’s special interventions when they occur. He is pleased when we recognize and praise Him…when we give Him the glory. Be careful.
vi. We’re likely all familiar with the story of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, who were thrown into a super-heated furnace because they wouldn’t bow to an image of the King of Babylon. Their dramatic rescue from the fiery furnace wasn’t just about God “saving their skin” [literally :-) ]. It wasn’t just for them, but for ALL the people. The King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II, acknowledged the true God, decreeing that the people of any nation or language who speak against The God of the Israelites would be cut into pieces and their houses turned into piles of rubble, “for not other God can save in this way.” The miracle was for God’s glory, so that entire peoples would hear about, and respect, Him and His people. Talking about miracles is another way of testifying to the real God and His work in our lives. He gets the glory.
I. I’ll treat you to a couple examples of the types of seeming miracles that happen even in our own western context…
i. Bus door ripped off (Mike) (Angel? Miracle? He says YES)
ii. Young Faith church mom (was in a bad wreck on I465 on east side of town…jumped out of the car & grabbed her son, distressed & crying, a kind man walks up, stays until emerg response arrives, she looks back and he’s gone…she then also realized she had no idea where he’d come from) (Angel? Miracle? He says YES)
iii. And one of my favorites…a young father was awakened by a large man standing by his bedside in the dark but felt no sense of fear, just sensed he needed to go check on his baby in another room. The blanket in the child’s crib was just starting to burn due to faulty Christmas lights in the nearby window that had ignited. (validated and published in Decision or CT mag).
J. I won’t ask for a raise of hands, but at this point, after hearing these things, I hope certain doubts about God or supernatural realities in our day are quelled as you reflect on these things. That’s why it’s fine and good that we share these things…they encourage us and dispel our doubts. And God receives glory He deserves. Perhaps you have stories of your own to recall intentionally when doubts come. But if we don’t, that should not keep us from believing and benefitting from these accounts when shared by reliable sources. It seems to me if we doubt the words of sincere, honest people who witnessed miracles who are sincere and not given to sensationalism, or through whom God chose to perform one, aren't we just like Thomas? Or, God forbid, similar to the Pharisees who had their minds set regardless what Jesus did or said. He wasn’t happy about that. God is glad to see us move past the habitually doubtful mindset. (James 1:6 on slide…wave of the sea…).
K. The essence of this first half of our “seminar” is not to induce guilt. Shoot, I'm over 60 and still needing to remind myself of these things. But I will also say I can challenge others, a bit like Paul, who expected his readers far from Jerusalem to believe because of the fact that crowds saw and testified concerning the resurrected Jesus... he expected them to be good with that. It's enough. He was using that as a way to induce faith over doubt. That's God's expectation throughout the Old Testament as well. In the very last book of the OT, Malachi, God's still expecting Israel to have faith and worship Him with pure hearts based on His great acts in delivering them from Egypt long, long before. It wasn’t just mental assent to certain truths, but living out their faith as if they’d experienced the astounding miracles of the plagues, parting of the Red Sea, etc themselves.
L. Could it be, that in the midst of thinking we have the “faith box” checked because we have trusted Christ as Lord and Savior, we don't actually display much faith at all in everyday life? Isn't fear of sharing Christ with others not related to what we’re talking about here? We are so often trapped & burdened by assumptions about the possibilities of what might happen if we share our faith with a certain person. It shows we are trusting only in our own judgment of the situation, not God's ability and even his desire that all come to faith (2 PT 3:9). And instances of negative responses, loss of friendship, etc are exceedingly rare though it’s what we always fear.
If we don’t exercise the faith we claim to have in God, that’s something we should pray about and seek to change. Doubt and fear are not good things, they are not our friends, maybe that’s why they’re addressed so many times in Scripture. I’ve sadly observed doubt and fear keep young people from experiencing tremendous things that would have likely brought tremendous growth in their lives that would have resulted in tremendous fruit for God’s Kingdom. Sometimes parents are in the same boat with their kids, silently grateful, perhaps even lightly tapping the brakes, as their son or daughter feels normal apprehension about taking a new step if the whole picture isn’t in view, or it will more likely keep them safe and in view. That isn’t God informing those postures. The older I get, and more I experience, the more sure I am of that. A Faith church Pastor used to say “F.A.I.T.H.” (put on screen). Young people, memorize and apply that as you follow Jesus.
M. I think of this prayer from St Gregory’s book of prayer, circa 1000AD, “Remember me, Lord of all, benefactor, light in the darkness, treasuer of blessings, merciful, compassionate, kind, mighty, powerful beyond telling, understanding, or words, equal to all crises, you who are, in the words of Jacob, always ready to do the impossible.” Here’s a sampling of vv we’d say we believe but some would say don’t apply today (these and Matthew 19:26)
These verses show the attitude of faithful people throughout scripture. And God does not change.