The reason they heard a lot about the miracle on the Hudson. Was it really a miracle? Could it have been a marvel? What is a miracle? Is Miracle Whip really a miracle? Or, Miracle Grow? Stay tuned; let's see what the Bible says about miracles in the New Testament church.
Thank you, thank you, my friend, for inviting us into your home by means of your radio or television set to study the Bible In Search of the Lord's Way-- the Lord's way to become a Christian and, the Lord's way to live like one. We pray we'll both be blessed by our study together today.
Last week we promised we would finish that study we began about the practice of "laying on of hands." We learned first that "laying on of hands" sometimes referred to an act of violence. Next it was a practice in the church of the New Testament for three reasons: (1) In the appointment of people to special work, as the church in Antioch did when they sent Barnabas and Paul out on that missionary tour in Acts chapter 13, verses 1 to 3. (2) The apostles practiced it to convey on other people a measure of the Holy Spirit that enabled the person to perform miracles. We also found that the apostles were the only ones that practiced laying on of hands for that purpose. And when they died, that practice must have ceased. Wasn’t it? Then (3) it was used at times in the performance of a miracle itself a miracle of healing or raising the dead, and the like.
So, that means that the church described in the New Testament really did enjoy the gift of miracles. Well, you rightly ask then, "If, the New Testament church enjoyed that gift, why do we, in our efforts to restore New Testament Christianity in this century, not believe and preach and teach miracles in Christ's church today? Well, it's a good question; it’s a reasonable question. And that is why I felt constrained to follow that lesson last week with one on miracles this week. If you think you might want a copy of it, you should address your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083, or searchtv@searchtv.org, or you may use our toll-free telephone number and call us. The number is 1-800-321-8633. Ken Helterbrand's going to lead us in a hymn; and then I'll be back.
We are reading today from the gospel of Mark, the 16th chapter; we will begin at verse 14. “Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.” Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy and righteous Father in heaven, we are so thankful for the revelation of Your word and Your conversation on this occasion with the apostles. And we pray that as we study it we can find really what You are saying to us in regards to miracles. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
What is a miracle? A lot of things we call miracles, are not really miracles. Well, you say, "A miracle is a working of God." Very well then; I have a beautiful plant in my study, my office. It's a small tree actually. I'm absolutely fascinated by it. The way those leaves begin to develop, and then unfold and finally open up into a new leaf with all of the changing colors is nothing short of-- well, it is fantastic! You thought I was going to say a miracle, didn't you? No, it isn't a miracle. It's beautiful! It is a marvel! It's a work of God! But it isn't a miracle. The birth of a baby is not a miracle. Oh, I know many mothers will want to write me and they will say something about it-- that I am mistaken about that. Oh, but it isn’t a miracle. It's a marvelous working of God all right, but it doesn't fall into the definition of a miracle. I'm sorry, but if that is what you're talking about, when you say you believe in miracles, then really-- they are really not miracles. We often hear television evangelists speak of “being born again” as a miracle. But, the new birth is not a miracle, friend. Like the birth of a baby, it's a marvelous working of God; and its fantastic working of amazing grace and all of that, but it is not a miracle.
Well then, what is a miracle? First, let's consider some definitions. My Webster's Dictionary says a miracle is (1) "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs (2) an extremely outstanding unusual event, thing or accomplishment," and all of that. Well, Webster defines words in their common usage. But, neither of those is a Biblical definition. R.C. Trench in his book, "Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord" says, "An ordinary divine causality, and not that which we acknowledge everywhere and in everything, belongs then, to the essence of the miracle, the unresting activity of God, which at other times hides and conceals itself behind the veil of what we term natural laws." That is the end of his quote. Then he says, "The miracle is not a greater manifestation of God's law than those ordinary and ever repeated processes, but it is a different manifestation." Well, we need to remember that.
Now let's look at some Bible miracles. They easily define a miracle. Jesus literally and miraculously turned water into wine at a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee (John chapter 2). At the Pool of Bethesda, He healed a man, who had been widely known as an invalid for 38 years (John 5). He fed 5,000 men (besides innumerable women and children) with five loaves and two small fish; and He had 12 basketfuls left over (John 6). He opened the eyes of a man who was known to have been born blind (John 9). After Lazarus had been dead for four days and his body had already begun to deteriorate, Jesus raised him from the dead and presented him alive to his friends in John 11. Jesus also raised a widow's son from the dead in the city of Nain, a man whose body had been prepared for burial and was being carried to the place of burial at the time (Luke 7). Jesus actually did rebuke the winds and the waves and calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee (Matthew chapter 8). He really did walk on the water of the Sea of Galilee. It was no gimmick, friend, (Matthew 14). He did it! Jesus confirmed His deity with His miracles. That is why He did them, friend. He did not perform miracles to be spectacular or sensational, but to confirm His claim to being the Son of the Almighty God (Matthew 27:54; John 10:36).
Jesus also gave those twelve men whom He called to be apostles the power to perform miracles to confirm the word which they preached (Mark 16, verses 14 through 20, as we read them awhile ago). In that passage which we read at the beginning of the program, He told them that these signs would follow them that believed; some of them had not believed, but now these signs would follow those that believed: "In My name (He said) they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." And they did!
When the Day of Pentecost was come, they spoke with the new tongues or languages-- not a prayer language now or an ecstatic utterance, but the languages of other nations and peoples. Soon after that day, Peter and John healed a man who had been lame from the day of his birth (for more than forty years) who publicly lay at the beautiful gate of the temple asking alms in Acts chapter 3. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead in Joppa (Acts chapter 9). Paul was bitten by a deadly viper and it didn't hurt him (Acts chapter 28). These were miracles, genuine, real miracles and we could go on and on with them.
Now we've come to the critical question today: Do we really and truly have such miracles as these today? You don't need my answer, do you? Do men today, by the power of God in the name of Jesus Christ really, do they really now, do anything that even slightly compares with the changing water into wine or feeding 5,000 hungry people on five loaves and two small fish? Do they now? Men today just simply don't stop the wind or calm the seas or walk on the water-- do they? No! They are just not doing it! If it were ever done, our very efficient news media would herald that around the world in less than a minute and it would make every newspaper in the next edition! Of all the people that were supposed to have received healing of blindness, where is the living person who was born blind, who has been healed in our generation? I don't have to tell you that this kind of thing is just simply not happening today! You know that already. So you see it isn't a question of whether we believe in miracles in the name of Christ in the church today. It's just that they are not being done.
Well, but, since it's conceded the church in the New Testament possessed miraculous powers or gifts, and His church today doesn't do that, does that mean that God is dead? No, not at all, my friend! Is the church that doesn't possess miraculous powers today dead-- or is it not the church that you read about in your Bible? And if not, why not? Well, those are perfectly reasonable questions.
First, in the absence of real miracles in the 21st Century Christianity doesn't mean God is dead or has become weakened in any way. He is the living God (Matthew 16:16). He is the Almighty God (Genesis 17:1); and He is absolutely Sovereign, meaning-- He never does anything out of necessity, but he has total freedom and power to do or not to do, whatever He pleases (Psalm 115, verse 3). And, there have been other long periods of time in the history of the world in which He had the power and willed not to do miracles.
We'll quickly move on to the second question; it's the one of critical interest that motivated our study today: Can the church today which doesn't possess miraculous powers be a church after the New Testament pattern or order or description? The answer is a clear and positive "yes," my friend! I've been asked this question, and I promised to give a Biblical explanation. So follow me closely, now. Please do!
God always has a purpose in His planning and in His work. He never used miracles as a side-show, or a crowd-pleaser. His purpose in miracles has always been confirmation of men or their mission-- or their message. Moses, for example was empowered by God to do miracles to establish his authority with the Hebrew people as well as with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Read Exodus chapters 3 and 4. Elijah performed miracles to establish His authority as the prophet of the true God with Ahab and Jezebel, and the prophets of Baal and people of Israel and those others at Mt. Carmel in 1 King 18. Jesus confirmed His claim of Sonship with the performance of miracles. When John the Baptist was imprisoned and faced beheading, he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus whether He was really the Son of God. And, Jesus referred to His miracles as proof (Matthew 11, verses 1 to 6). At His first miracle John wrote, "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed on Him" (John 2, verse 11). And at the end of his gospel narrative apostle John wrote, "Truly did Jesus in the presence, other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God..." And that is John 20, verses 30 and 31.
When Jesus commissioned the apostles to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (He said) He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned." He promised them, "These signs will follow those who believe." Then He enumerated them, as we read at the beginning of this program. And verses 19-20, "So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they (the apostles) went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with the accompanying signs." That was the purpose that God had for miracles in the new-- the infant church of the first century. But, when the gospel message was completely revealed and confirmed, and the purpose of miracles in Christianity then ceased. Since God does nothing without purpose, the miracles themselves ceased. John confirmed near the close of his gospel narrative when he wrote, "Truly did Jesus many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you might believe…” Let us pray. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for the revelation of Your word-- the revelation of the miracles that others did in receiving the word and the confirmation of the message they wrote down in the Bible. And we pray your blessings on our study of it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The 12th, 13th and 14th chapters of 1 Corinthians are the apostle Paul's instructions concerning the use of miraculous gifts given to the members that are in the church in Corinth. (I remind you now, that Paul didn't divide his letter into those chapters and verses. We did that to help us find our way around in the Scriptures. It only confuses the reader who alienates one part from the others.) If all we know as chapter 12, I should say in what we know as chapter 12 he mentions nine spiritual gifts to the church. They are wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues and the interpretation of tongues. All of these were necessary for the revelation and the confirmation of the unwritten word-- the spoken gospel message.
Later (in what we call the 13th chapter) he continued, saying, "...Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish way." Whoops! Wait a minute: are we to understand that God's planning and purpose included the temporary use of these tongues and all of these miracles? And in God’s planning they were destined to fail or cease or vanish away? Well, that's exactly what verse eight says, isn't it? Well, why? Isn't Christ Jesus the same yesterday, today, and forever? Oh yes He is! Then, why this change? These mighty works, these miracles he mentioned, wisdom, knowledge, gifts of healings, tongues-- all nine of them-- are going to fail or cease or vanish away? Wow! When? When is all that going to happen? Well, he tells us-- "we know in part, we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect (or complete) has come, then that which was in part will be done away" (verse 8, 9, and 10). That simply says there were miraculous prophesies, and tongues and knowledge, etc. in the infancy of the church, but, it was designed that they would end. When? "When that which is complete is come?" What is the “that” that was to come? It's a "that" and not a "who." I mean, God didn't say, "When He who is perfect is come." He said, "When that which is perfect is come." So that eliminates what a lot of us were taught-- Jesus Christ. No, it isn't a reference to the return of Christ. The word "perfect" in this verse is from the original word in the language which means "complete." So, these miraculous gifts ended in the church of the New Testament when the revelation of God's Word was "complete" or "perfected." That's why we are not trying to restore miracles to New Testament Christianity-- because they had achieved their purpose, and according to God's word they failed; they ceased; they vanished away.
Well, I pray that we have cleared up some problems with you about the written word and some things that are in it concerning miraculous gifts. If you would like to have a copy of this message, why you may see our address at the end of the program on the tape. God bless you. Be with us next week. We love you.
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