Miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ - an Overview — Charles Leiter

I was telling one of the brothers, I think it was yesterday, that a lot of times lately I've been feeling like Whitefield. He said, today I commence to begin to start to live the Christian life. And that's always the way I feel down here.

When the day comes that we see things as they are, all we are going to see is a bunch of little, wicked, sinful men and a glorious God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we ever get any idea of anything other than that, it's just because we've gotten deceived about reality.

When you find out the reality, you get to thinking too much of somebody, anybody. God might have to pull back a little bit and show you the reality. I hope that's not the case. But that's the reality.

There is no body that is an inch off the ground. Every one of us right on a level plane of zero and one who's worthy. Well, turn with me, if you would, this evening to Acts chapter 2, and we'll read verses 22 -24.

Peter's Proclamation of Jesus' Miracles

Peter's preaching here, and he says, As men of Israel listened to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God, with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.

God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. I'd like to speak to you tonight, Lord willing, on verse 22, concerning the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And tonight, we will be considering this subject in general, just a little bit of an overview and an introduction. Lord willing, tomorrow night, we'll look at one particular instance of those miracles that I trust will illustrate somewhat what we're going to be talking about tonight.

Peter is preaching here to unbelieving Jews, men who are hostile to his message, and his first words concerning the Lord Jesus Christ are a bold proclamation about all the miracles and wonders and signs that God did through him.

Those were the things that characterized his life. And so the first point that I want us to look at tonight is just this, the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we get used to this, but I just want to try to bring you back to it.

Jesus' Ministry as a Life of Miracles

The ministry and life of the Lord Jesus Christ was a ministry of miracles. He was miraculous from beginning to end. Think of his miracles of healing alone. You tell me some of them. He healed the blind.

What else? Lame man. He healed the deaf. And somebody said leprosy. He healed leprosy. Blindness, dumbness, deafness, leprosy, palsy, people that can't walk, ears that are cut off, issues of blood. How about fevers?

He took care of them. Now, not just one occasion of healing somebody that was blind. Repeated miracles of healing the blind. Healing the lame. Healing the palsied. Healing paralysis. All of those things.

Now, we're going to get to that one. We're talking about miracles of healing here. Just in the miracles of healing. Withered hands and severed ears. Miracles of feeding. 5 ,000 on one occasion. Fed with a few loaves and fish.

4 ,000 on another occasion. Miracles of provision. Need to have some tribute money here. There's a fish that's got a coin in his mouth. What's he saying to us, you see? Miracles of provision. Miracles of deliverance from the bondage of Satan.

Deafness. Again, dumbness. Spirits of infirmity that cause a woman to be bent double for 18 long years. Spirits of suicide that would try to cast the child into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

Legions of demons that would cause a man to have supernatural strength and run around naked in the tombs, cutting himself and crying out. I say miracles of deliverance. What else? Miracles over the elements.

Here's this fierce gale of wind. Water filling the boat. Jesus asleep. He gets up, rebukes that wind, and he says, Shh, be quiet. Here's another time where they're rowing for hours and hours into the wind, and Jesus comes walking on the water.

Miracles over the elements. Now look at this. Miracles of healing. Miracles of deliverance. Miracles of provision. Miracles of feeding. Miracles over the elements. What else? Miracles over the animal kingdom.

He says, throw your net in over there. And all those fish come into there just like that. Fill that net up. Miracles over the plant kingdom. Says to that fig tree, that's it. No more fruit from you. And it withers up.

There's more. Miracles of protection and deliverance from enemies. Here he is there in Luke 4. They're ready to kill him. He just walks right through the middle of them. And in the Gospel of John, when they've come to get him, he says, who are you seeking?

They say who they're seeking. He says, I am. And they didn't just fall backward. They lurched backward. Fell down to the ground. That's miraculous. And last and greatest of all, somebody mentioned it, miraculous triumph over death itself.

Jesus' Power Over Death

Here's this widow's son. Funeral procession taking place. And he stops it. Tells him to get up. Here's Jairus's daughter. It's too late now. If we just got to him sooner, he could have done something.

But don't trouble him anymore. Here's a man who's been dead four days. And you remember she said, by now he stinks. And I think whenever they roll that stone back, the most awful smell rolled out of there.

Boiled out of there. He hadn't raised him yet, you see. The ultimate triumph over death is he raised himself from the dead. Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. I have power to lay it down.

I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received from my Father. Now, think of this. A man, you kill him, and he has power to raise himself from the dead. I say a life of miracles saturated with miracles.

Everywhere you turn. In every circumstance, miracles of every sort. I say the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus is a life and ministry of miracles. Now, this goes a long way toward explaining why so little is said about the Lord Jesus Christ in secular history books.

You have a history book of 2 ,000 pages. And there's two pages on Jesus of Nazareth. And even by a secular standpoint, men would have to admit he affected world history more than any other man. Why don't they give him some space?

I'll tell you why. Because Jesus Christ is too hot to handle. You start messing around with him, you're in trouble. There was a magazine article I read years ago in the Humanist magazine. It should be called the Anti-Christian magazine.

But what it was, the title of the article was, was Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate. And then the subtitle, did he ever even live? Now, that ought to be a real encouragement to every Christian.

Because you see, the Lord Jesus Christ is so supernatural that you have either got to bow to him or you've got to spit on him and try to kill him or maybe even say that he never even lived at all, which is a historical, absolute stupidity and idiocy to say that he never lived.

That ought to be greatly encouraging to us. They can't even look at him. They can't even let the, let the crack in the door without having to bow to him. You see that? You see, the supernatural is so tied up with the person of Jesus Christ.

That's the only options you've got. You have to bow to him or you have to try to kill him. There was a time when the so-called liberals used to think that if you just threw out all these legends about the miracles, you could get back to this nice human Jesus that just went around, you know, telling people to love one another.

Just throw out those miracles and that's what you get to. The problem is, if you throw out the miracles, you end up without any Jesus at all. Because there, now think of this, there is no non-supernatural Jesus in history.

So you're going to have to deny that he even lived. There is no such person. You see, all the major world's religions can get along fine without the miraculous. Now, think about this. You just think about, think about Hinduism.

They've got all these gods. There's a fellow in his church up there in Kirksville. He drives for the college. They have a class on Hinduism. And a few years ago, they went up to Chicago and they arrived at one of these Hindu temples.

And he overheard the teacher saying, and the guy that, I don't know what he did at this temple, but he said, this is, this is really great. You're here just in time to see them put the gods to bed. Get to tuck those gods in.

Isn't that amazing? The miraculous has nothing to do with it. It's not founded upon the miraculous. If you think of Confucianism. Here's Confucius. He gives these different sayings, you know, supposedly wise things.

Some are more wise, but they have nothing to do. They're not based in any way upon anything supernatural. Say the same thing about Mohammedanism, Islam or Buddhism. Follow this noble eightfold path, you see, doesn't have anything to do with the supernatural.

Christianity Founded on the Supernatural

But that's not the way it is with Christianity. Christianity is precisely the story of the great miracle. What our brother read this evening, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Christianity says that God came down into this world and He was born of a virgin and that's miraculous. And then He lived a supernatural life, a sinless life. That's miraculous. A life full of miracles, what we just looked at.

And then when He came to the end of it, He died a supernatural death. Yes, He was not a martyr, you see. Martyrs don't die with the sun going black for three hours and the earth shaking. Right, exactly.

You see that? That's supernatural. There was stuff going on there, you see, that's beyond anything in this natural realm. He died not as a martyr. He died bearing the wrath of God and then He supernaturally rose again from the dead.

You see what, again, here's Buddha. He says, there's the noble eightfold path. You walk down that eightfold path and you'll get to Nirvana. There's the way. You follow that way. You know what Jesus said?

I am the way. No man comes to the Father but by me. Our religion is a religion of worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ as God. Everything's supernatural from one end to the other. Now, that's the message of Peter on the day of Pentecost.

Exactly this. The disciples had been shocked and overwhelmed by the miracle of Jesus of Nazareth. Not just His resurrection, but everything. His whole life. And it had begun to settle in on them and the Holy Spirit had come to make it real.

The Apostolic Witness to Jesus' Resurrection

And Peter gets up there, whereas he was denying that he even knew the Lord a few days before. He gets up there and he says to thousands of people, You know, you know God attested Him to you by signs and wonders and diverse miracles.

He did it in your midst. Look at what he says here in verse 22. A man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.

You see, the Jews, they didn't deny the miracles. They said it was by the power of Satan. They didn't say it. They said, we're going to be in trouble. Everybody knows notable miracles being done here.

Beloved, has it ever struck you? Look at these Gospels. In my Bible, they take up about 180 pages. They're right there. What are you going to do with them? Where did they come from? Where did they come from?

Do you really believe that the disciples made up the Sermon on the Mount? I don't think so. Do you think maybe the disciples made up the Upper Room Discourse and the High Priestly Prayer? Maybe the disciples made up the resurrection.

They were the last ones to believe it. They were weak and vacillating and trembling and fearful, and the reality of the resurrection exploded upon them. And those same weak, wimpy men were standing up on this day right here with the power of God upon them saying, we are witnesses to his resurrection and you crucified him.

And you go through the book of Acts over and over and over. We're witnesses of his resurrection. That which we have seen and heard of that we bear witness. Aren't you thankful that Christianity is not a philosophy?

False Miracles and the Uniqueness of Christ's Signs

It's not something that smart men came up with. It's something that men saw. They saw something. They said, we saw our hands are handled concerning the Word of Life. We're witnesses of this. You want to know what it's like when people make up miracles?

You read in Mohammedanism. Mohammed, they said, he could make water come out from between his fingers. That's quite a trick, isn't it? And he rode his horse Borak to paradise and back. Isn't that quite a miracle?

And they said the trees would walk along and stones and salute to him. Buddha, when he was born, here's this little newborn baby. He jumped up and clapped his hands and said, I have arrived. I'll tell you what, the so-called Christian religion type miracles are just as bad.

You read the apocryphal Gospels, so-called Gospels made up by men. Well, they've got Jesus as a little boy. He's playing with his playmates and might be fun to make some birds. So he rolls up some clay and throws it up in the air and turns it into birds.

Do you realize how ridiculous that is compared to these sublime accounts? Majestic, glorious accounts. They didn't make these things up. They saw it and they didn't even understand it for a long time later.

Oh, what a contrast between what men can do and what we have recorded in the Bible. These miracles are not just tricks of some kind of divine magician. They're not juggling acts. They're not things meant to draw a crowd.

Just the opposite, right? They're not done for selfish pursuits. When the Lord Jesus is there on the cross saying, I thirst like that song we heard, that'd been a good time just to have a miracle and get something to drink.

Never anywhere in the Gospels is any of that. Just the opposite. These miracles were acted parables, as I hope we'll see tomorrow night. Some people try to explain them as psychosomatic cures. I had a comparative religion book back in my college days.

And this man, it was really a pretty good book. His name was Noss. It was kind of a standard text on comparative religion. And let me just read to you what he says. He says, the healing miracles of Jesus, as preserved to us in tradition, present many difficulties.

But if we could speak of a minimum view, it would be something like this. In a world like that of Jesus' time, where spiritual and nervous tensions were so great, there must have been many instances of functional disorders greatly aggravated by fears and repressions.

And exhibiting many of the symptoms of organic disease. This looked like the real thing among all classes of the people. The nobility of Jesus' own faith, mediated through a wholesome, sympathetic, and challenging personality, remade many lost or sick souls, restored their faith, and caused their alarming symptoms to vanish in an instant.

Now, let's think about this. What are some of those alarming symptoms? Well, here's a guy. He's got these sores all running on him. He thinks he has leprosy. And Jesus said, I'm willing. Be cleansed. And like that, he's restored.

You see that? Here's a guy. Well, here's a woman who has an issue of blood for 12 years. You see, you go right down through the list of these things. Not one of them fits in that picture. Here's a guy born blind.

From the time he was a little baby, he had all those fears and repressions and thought that he couldn't see. And somebody mentioned, here's a man been dead for four days. How does he put it? Sympathetic, wholesome, challenging personality.

You've got to have a real challenging personality to get that dead man stirred up. What foolishness. The response back then was the same as it would be now. That's what they said. Matthew 9 .33. Nothing like this was ever seen in Israel.

Mark 2 .12. We have never seen anything like this. They realized. John 9 .32. Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. That brings us to the second point.

Christ's Miracles Call Us to Bow Before Him

The miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to cause us to bow down, fall down before Him. Now, Peter says that right here. Verse 22. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God.

God has said to the human race, I put my stamp upon the Lord Jesus Christ and all of His outrageous claims. I put my stamp upon Him. He says, I am the father of one. I'll back him up. He says, I'm going to come back at the end of the age and all the nations are going to be gathered before me and I'm going to separate them like a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats.

I'll back him up. His works were God's attestation that we need to fall down before Him. John 5, 36. The witness which I have is greater than that of John for the works which the Father has given me to accomplish.

The very works that I do bear witness of me that the Father sent me. Men have no excuse for not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus said. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin.

But now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. That's the response that the world has given. Hatred. You know that verse Brother Bob read a little earlier. In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God. The word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. What we beheld is glory. And it was a unique glory. It's a glory unlike any other glory in this world. It's the glory as of the only begotten from the Father.

Now, what is it about Christ that has that unique divine self-attesting glory? Well, it's his words and his works. That's how you know what a person is and who a person is. By what he says and what he does.

And the Lord Jesus Christ said things that no man has ever said. Never a man. You remember they went out to get him. He said nobody's ever spoken like that. And he did works that nobody else has ever done.

Since the beginning of the world, it was never heard of anything like this. And men are judged and condemned. Think of this. The human race. The human race has it right here. And they ignore it and deny it and hate him for it.

Christ's Miracles Encourage Faith in God

And they say maybe he never even lived. I say the miracles of Christ ought to cause us to bow before him. Thirdly, lastly, the miracles of Christ ought to greatly encourage us to believe God. Now, this is something.

The same verse, verse 22. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him. A man. He said that, didn't he?

A man attested by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him. He was fully 100 God. But I want you to get a hold of this here. The Lord Jesus Christ did not perform his miracles as God walking around in a human skin.

He performed his miracles as a man dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit. John 14, 10. Jesus says the Father abiding in me does his works. The Father is doing these works. God attested him. By these miracles, which God did through him, God did them.

OK, one more. Acts chapter 10, 38 and 39. You remember this? He says, you know, Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power. And he went about doing good, healing all those that were oppressed by the devil.

For God was with him. God was with him. Now, listen to this. And we are witnesses of all the things that he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. Now, look at this. Peter, and whoever was preaching there in Acts 10, I think it was Peter.

He says we're witnesses of all the things that he did. You look at anything he did, any one of these miracles. And what he's saying is, how did he do those miracles? God put his spirit upon him. And he performed those miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit as a man.

He did not do these things through the inherent power of his deity. Now, this is incredible. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is quite common in commentaries on the Gospels or on the miracles. Now, to see them saying that this or that miracle is an act of Jesus' divine nature.

For example, it says he knew all men. He didn't need anyone to bear witness concerning that. They say that's the divine nature coming through. That was an act of the divine nature. And then when you see him thirsting on the cross or something like that, you say that's an act of the human nature.

The Unity of Christ's Divine and Human Person

Beloved, natures don't act. Natures don't have wills. They don't have personality. A person is one who acts and wills, and there's one person in Christ. He's 100 God and he's 100 man, but it's the person of Christ that's acting in everything he does.

In his person, he's acting. The Lord Jesus Christ is a divine person. And he's a human person. He's both human and divine, but he's one person. And the faith that he exercised and the battles that he won, he won not as a God in human skin, but as a man trusting in God.

He had to do it that way. Otherwise, his victory would have been pointless to help us. If he didn't come down here as a man and succeed right in the spot where Adam failed, what good does it do me? Everybody knows God.

It's a pushover for God. He can't be tempted or anything else. The Bible says he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He didn't have any unfair advantage over you and me. He didn't have any trump card up his sleeve that he could pull out.

You know, he pulled down some of his powers as logos. Make it easy. I like that there in Matthew, the devil comes to him. He says, if you're the Son of God, command these stones to be bred. Remember how Jesus answered?

Man, man shall not live by bread alone. The devil tried to take him down this path. If you're the Son of God. And if he had gone down that path, I mean, he went down an exact opposite path. If he'd gone down that path, it would have been all over.

He knew better than that. He willingly takes a position down here. He says, man, man shall not live. I'm going to win this battle as a man for my people. For me, I'm going to succeed where Adam failed.

And I'm not going to use any powers that he didn't have to call upon. I read repeatedly in commentaries when I was speaking about the miracles. Recently there in Kirksville, I've read repeatedly in commentaries where they say they talk about the omniscience of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He knew all things. Well, that's not what he said. He said of that day and that hour, no man knows, the angels don't know, nor the Son. He said he didn't know. Now, I'm not contesting the idea that as the divine Logos, he had resources that he could have drawn upon of omniscience and omnipotence and everything else, but he steadfastly refused to draw upon them and took the position of a man drawing upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

When you see a miracle in the life of Jesus, Peter said all those things were witness to all those things God did through him by the power of the Holy Spirit upon him. When you see him doing a miracle, he's doing it as a man drawing upon the resources of the Spirit of God.

I love that passage in Hebrews 2. It says, both he that sanctified, that's Christ, and those who are sanctified, that's us, are all from one. One what? One Father. Because he says the next verse, for which cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren.

And then he quotes verses from the Old Testament. And what are they? I will declare thy name unto my brethren. So Christ comes down here so low and gets right among us. He says, I'm going to tell you about God.

Brother, I want to tell you about God. Isn't that incredible? I'm going to tell you about God. And then the writer to the Hebrews quotes another verse from the Old Testament. He says, and again, and quotes it, I will put my trust in him.

Now, why does he quote that? Because Christ comes down here so low that he's got to put himself here and put his trust in God the same way we do. And he says, maybe I skipped one here. He says, in the midst of the church, I'll sing praise unto thee.

He'll sit right down here in the congregation and sing along with us. It's amazing. Put himself in a position where he had to trust in God as a man, just like we do. Now, think of the wonder of this. Sometimes we don't let it sink in.

Here's a man, the perfect man, Christ Jesus, stops that funeral procession. He says, get up. Here's the man, Christ Jesus, seeing those waves, going like this and just walks out on top of them. What must humanity be capable of?

In utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit. We've never seen what humanity can be, except in the one true man, Christ Jesus. Now, think of this. We're almost done. Think of this in relation to us and putting our faith in God.

Jesus' Faith as an Example for Believers

Let's get a look at one example. Mark chapter 11 and verse 20 says, as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered up from the roots or withered from the roots up. And being reminded, Peter said to him, Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed has withered.

Jesus answered, saying to them, of course, Peter, I'm divine. That's not what he said, is it? He says, Rabbi, look what happened to this tree. And he turns it back to him. He says, you have faith in God, just like I did.

Isn't that amazing? That is amazing. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. The parallel passage says, if you have faith and do not doubt in your heart, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and cast in the sea, it shall happen.

He exhorts us to believe in God ourselves in light of what he's just done. Now, none of that makes any sense, except in light of what we've been saying about the man, Christ, trusting the Father. Have faith in God.

That's simple, isn't it? Hudson Taylor had that as the motto of the China Mission. We were over there some years ago, Mona and I, and we saw that it's still there. That place has been sold long ago and it's used for something else.

But in the arch up there, you can see it. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. What a thing this is, that not just the miracles of Peter and Paul, but the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ apply to me and tell me that I ought to have faith in God.

That's amazing. Well, let me just read it again in closing. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.

A life of miracles that ought to cause us to bow down and also ought to tell us, you put your faith in God. Amen. Lord willing, we'll look at one of those miracles tomorrow night.