Miracle, Smiracle?

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Before we start, let me say this. The one thing that I did not do this week with this information and this message is
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I did not switch my notes from NAS to ESV. So I'm probably going to be reading
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NAS and you'll just have to allow me that. Since I was sick this week I didn't switch it over.
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ESV and NAS are very, very close. There's a lot of differences if you look at the entire corpus, but it's close enough that you're not going to lose the meaning if I'm reading
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NAS and you have ESV. How many people here have ESV? How many people here are holding off for the
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MacArthur Study Bible ESV in the fall? Some, okay. How about NAS? Okay.
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How about NIV? Okay. How about RSV? Anybody brave enough to admit you have the message?
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Let's pray and then we'll start. Our Heavenly Father, thank you today that we could be reminded again of how much you love us and how your son laid down his life for his love for you and his love for us.
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We're thankful that now that you've made us children there's nothing that could separate us from your love which is found in Christ Jesus.
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Thank you that whether we sin, whether we disobey, whether we obey, no matter what we do, we know that you still love us the exact same and that is with the love that you love your son.
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And Lord, because of that, would you help us to walk circumspectly? Would you help us to walk in a way that would honor you?
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As Paul would say, Lord, help us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. I pray for these dear people tonight that you'd help them to understand biblical miracles and then at the end of the day not be controversial, not be comparing against charismatics, but that you would impress us with how great you are and how you can do miracles.
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We want to praise you for what you've done, not just learn the details. And so Father, help us to honor you in the way we think about you tonight and the way we talk to others.
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In Jesus' name, amen. In an introduction fashion,
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I don't have anything against charismatics. I don't hate them. I don't have some kind of thing that I have to keep talking about the charismatic movement.
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It's not that at all. As a matter of fact, I grew up going to school and my mother would drive me to school.
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Every day, guess who we listened to in the car? Jimmy Swagger. Every single day, it was
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Swagger on the way to school and it was Swindoll on the way back home. The church that I grew up in was an evangelical
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Lutheran church that was charismatic. It was a charismatic church.
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I remember when MacArthur said, I don't hate charismatics. I married one. And I've stolen that line because when
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I met Kim, she was going to a Pentecostal church and I thought, I don't hate charismatics. I married one. And so it's not that I have a grudge or anything.
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As a matter of fact, I love them enough that I want them to know the truth about biblical definitions. And I think we have precedent for that in the
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Scripture. 1 Corinthians 13, love rejoices in the truth.
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One man said, Christian television, radio, books, magazines, and because their ministries are so aggressive that we are all inundated by them through direct mail, charismatic direct mail.
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Television and media has spread this movement. It has created for them a tremendous platform.
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In fact, it is probably not far from the truth to say that most people would assume that evangelical
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Christianity is what the charismatic movement represents. I think that's pretty accurate.
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If you meet someone and you tell them that you're an evangelical, they'll probably think you're a charismatic. And so what
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I wanted to do tonight is I wanted to talk about biblical miracles because here's what I'm going to go for at the end of the day.
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If someone says, this was a miracle that happened, and these are what biblical miracles are, and there's a difference, then
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I don't want these to be called biblical miracles. Loy and I were just talking earlier in the service. If someone today says,
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I saw an angel, and then we look at what angel sightings were in the Bible, and they're different, then
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I'm not going to call modern day angel sightings biblical. And so that's really what I'm after.
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And so I'm going to ask you the question, you tell me true or false, and then tell me why or why not.
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So number one, the definition of a biblical miracle is being watered down today.
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That's too easy. I should have made this so much harder. True. Tell me what are some common definitions of miracle today?
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How do we use the word miracle in our society today or even in evangelical society? Yes. Okay.
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Good. Fair. Andrew. Okay. That's a good point.
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What is a biblical miracle? And anything less, we should just probably call it something else. By the way, having a baby is fantastic.
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It's awesome. It's unbelievable. I tell you all the time that when we have kids and they come out, and they're born, and they look over at me, and they say it's a boy,
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I always say the same thing. Ain't evolution grand? I mean, this is an amazing thing, evolution.
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And I'm trying to be sarcastic about it. We use the word miracle for all kinds of things.
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In the prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson said, a miracle is an intervention by God to make something happen that wouldn't normally happen.
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Benny Hinn says that you should expect a miracle today. What he's talking about there is expect some kind of providential movement of God.
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But I don't think we're quite ready for the biblical definition yet. Oral Roberts said that present -day miracles are something, quote, that we can't explain, but that make a profound change for the better in our lives.
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Society uses the word miracle. We have a miracle on 34th Street, don't we? We have
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Robert, Roger Staubach, who led the Cowboys to two touchdowns in less than two minutes in the 1972
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NFC Championship, and it was called the miracle victory. Let me give you, pardon me, what did you say?
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Probably, yes, we throw that word all around. Walt Whitman said, to me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle.
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Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. What's a biblical miracle? There's a key word that I'm looking for when it comes to biblical miracles.
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Brian? Supernatural. Good. What else? Spectacular, okay.
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What else? Undeniable. Let me give you a couple definitions.
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Thesen, a unique and extraordinary event, awakening wonder wrought by divine power, authenticating a messenger and his message from God.
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By the way, you're not going to be able to write fast enough tonight, so if you want my notes, you email me at bbcpastor at bbcchurch .com
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or info at nocompromisedradio .com, that's not a plug, but you email me and I'll send you these notes so you don't have to scribble so fast.
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If you want the definitions, I'll send them to you. Matter of fact, if I ever say something, someone said the other day, the poem that I used for Blake's funeral, they wanted the poem.
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Email me, I'll send you the information, okay? I'm here to serve you. Holman Bible Dictionary, miracles are an immediate and powerful action of God designed to reveal his character or purposes.
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Easton Bible Dictionary, an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency of God.
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I like that. It's a supernatural event and it's brought about by the immediate agency of God.
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It is an occurrence at once above nature and above man. Number two, miracles in the
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Bible were spectacular. How could we define miracles a little bit more? Well, let's now lead into some of the scriptural things that talk about miracles being spectacular.
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Who can give me a spectacular miracle? The answer, by the way, to number two is true. What was a spectacular miracle in the
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Bible? Perfect. Raising of Lazarus, I have that in my notes. Fire on Mount Carmel, excellent.
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Feeding the 5 ,000, good. You mean that wasn't like a Kierkegaard said that it was like a sacramental meal, there was just some fish there and some bread and everybody just got a little tiny bit of it, like, you know, communion size.
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Wasn't that? Okay, good. Bruce? Splitting the Red Sea, good.
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By the way, they used to have a lot of shows on CBS and they'd try to explain biblical miracles without a supernatural work of God, just based on the winds and the sandbar and all that stuff.
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And I thought it was fascinating, but I thought it's taken God and His divine initiative right out of those things.
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I always thought they were unbelievers trying to explain what actually happened. Anybody else? Yes, Vida?
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Pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, excellent. There's a lot of them, by the way. Mark? Ten plagues of Egypt, perfectly designed to show them who their gods really weren't.
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Let's turn to John chapter 9 and let's consider the healing of a man born blind.
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I think that's a good one. Back in the old days, there was all kinds of blindness. The most common way to get blindness was from the birth canal and there'd be an infection in the eyes.
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There would be no antibiotics around and there would be blindness that could be passed on by leprosy.
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It was very, very common. People would get cataracts. People would have problems with their vision as they were older.
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They would try to treat these disorders with all kinds of balms.
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They would try to lance their eyelids. Can you imagine going to some doctor 2 ,000 years ago if you had eye trouble?
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That's why I think, do I want to get Lasix or not? Because in 50 years, they're going to look back and say, that was barbaric.
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But in 50 years, it's not going to matter. This would be a spectacular miracle.
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And what I'm after is some kind of leg lengthening, a bad back.
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I'm in a wheelchair and now I can walk a few steps. Those are not spectacular. This is
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John 9, 5. You know the context. You know what's going on. I can't walk through the entire passage, but just a few verses.
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Verse 5 of chapter 9, while I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
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Jesus is not just the light of the world in some supernatural sense, but he's also going to give light to this man's pupils.
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When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to his eyes.
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Isn't that interesting? Out of the dust of the ground. And said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated sin.
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And so he went away and washed and came back seeing. Now interestingly, jump down to the end of the chapter, verse 32.
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Since the beginning of time, isn't that interesting how John says that? Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
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Turn with me if you would to Mark chapter 14. And let me give you my second illustration of what could be many, but I'm only going to give you a couple probably, is a man's amputated ear put back on.
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Have you ever seen an amputation? I worked in the hospital operating rooms for long enough to see amputations.
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And they were probably the second worst thing that I would see. The worst thing is when I went to LA, a children's hospital, and you walk into a children's hospital and you realize,
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I even talked to Scott Goddard today when Nathan had to get his wrist done, and he thought it was a pretty big deal.
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And rightfully so, as a father whose son could have tendons severed and lose function of his hand for his whole life, and limited amount of hand movement, everything went fine.
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But he said, you know, I came back very, very thankful for my family and their health after seeing the three -year -olds with cancer and all the other things that go on at children's hospital.
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It's difficult to be at a children's hospital. And the other thing that I found was difficult was an amputation.
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Because when you watch an operating room procedure, you're in there and typically the face is covered, the anesthesiologist or the anesthetist can see the face.
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You can't see the face and you just see this big square. If it's some kind of thoracic surgery, you can just see the square and everything else is draped.
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So it almost doesn't really look like a human, right? Especially if it's some kind of abdominal surgery or a leg, because you can't see the face and it just looks like it's some kind of autopsy.
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And so you see this and they're working and most of the time, I'd say 99 % of the time, I saw somebody have surgery.
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They would get wheeled in and they're kind of groggy and I look like I was a doctor and so they would always look at me and say, hi doctor, how are you?
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And I'd say, very well, thank you. I thought I was pretty, you know, hot shot back in those days. Of course, before I was saved, hi, how are you?
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Then they put them to sleep and then afterwards you're walking around and they're still awake. They're still alive.
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I mean, they wake up, they're alive. But it was the amputations that always got me because dead weight is heavy.
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And so when they would have to take somebody's leg off, typically an older man and they'd have to get his leg amputated from below the knee because of blood flow problems and they would cut his leg off, suture everything up and they would go over to the bucket and they would drop that leg in the bucket.
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I thought, I'm never going to forget that. Now, what would it be like if somebody walked over and picked up that leg and then put it back on?
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That's exactly what happens here, except it's not a leg, it's an ear. And this is a fascinating thing.
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This is a spectacular miracle. This is miraculous. It's supernatural and it's God intersected into human life.
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Mark 14, 45. We could look at Luke 22, but let's look at the Mark passage. After coming, he immediately went to him saying,
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Rabbi, and kissed him. What's going on here? What's the context? Judas is kissing Jesus.
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This is a long kiss. This is not, what do we call small little kisses on the cheek?
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A peck. This is not a peck. This is a prolonged kiss. Thayer translates it to kiss much, kiss again and again, and to kiss tenderly.
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Arkand Hughes has a way with words. Judas's kiss drips with horror for it is a calloused prostitution of one of humanity's most sacred symbols.
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Judas was a deicide and a suicide. He was a God killer and he killed himself as well.
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Treachery. Verse 46, now the signal's been made and they laid hands on him and seized him.
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But a certain one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.
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You can almost feel the language is rapid paced. It's the way Mark likes to write and there's a certain person here and he saw what was going on and he took out his knife and he cut the ear off.
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You can feel the force of Mark's writings. Who was the one who had the sword by the way?
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Peter had the sword. John says Simon Peter therefore having a sword drew it, struck the high priest's slave and cut off his right ear and the slave's name was
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Malchus. What happened?
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I think Peter gets the sword out and I think Peter goes to do what? To cut his head off.
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He's going for the neck and what happens? You can just see it in your mind's eye. Here's the sword.
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It's going to come around like that or coming down like that and Malchus does what?
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He ducks. He ducks and gets his ear cut off. Now by the way did you know the ear is very vascular?
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You cut your ear, it bleeds a lot. I mean there's a lot of cartilage there but it bleeds pretty well. I found that out shaving the hair off my ear a couple years ago when
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I first started getting hair on my ear. I go wow man they're just bleeding everywhere. Can you imagine having the whole thing?
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And I don't think it's just a little chip. I don't think this is kind of like Mike Tyson biting somebody's ear just a little bit.
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This is his ear off. You heard it here first. He said imagine the pounding tension as Malchus stood wide eyed, blood pouring through his fingers as 100 steel blades rang from their scabbards in terrible symphony.
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So now all these soldiers they all get out their swords as well. It's amazing.
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Luke 22 it says Jesus answered and said stop no more of this and he touched his ear and healed him.
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What do you think happened? Okay his ear is cut off. You say it could be dangling. It could be on the ground.
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Let's just say it's dangling. What do you think Jesus did? Kind of put it up there and maybe a little super glue.
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By the way if you ever want to and this is just free medical advice. When I became a doctor the kids were like wow you got your doctorate.
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Boy this is you know how to do stitches now dad right? But super glue works good for stitches by the way if you don't want to take the kids in the hospital.
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And super glue costs a dollar from the store and if you want operating grade super glue it's probably $5 ,000.
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So just go down and get some super glue. Put it up. Squeeze it in. You're in good shape. What did he do?
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It doesn't say anything about he put his ear back up. He pushed it in. He got a band aid.
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He got a suture. He touched his ear and healed him. I think the ear is back on.
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I think he just grew the ear right there. I don't think he picked it up and put it on. He could have if he wanted to.
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I would say that is a spectacular miracle. Number three.
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By the way we could look at all kinds of other snake bites in Acts 28. Raising Eutychus from the dead.
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Healing a paralyzed man. We have to keep moving. Number three.
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Miracles. I can get through today. Lord help me get through today.
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Biblical miracles were undeniable. True or false? I'm going to try to be as nice as I can when
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I say this. If you, I don't mean you, but if people can really do biblical miracles then
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I want them to call ABC. I want them to call the Drudge Report.
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I want them to call 20 -20. I want them to call Mike Wallace. Is Mike Wallace still alive? Chris Wallace's son.
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Call all the investigative reporters and say we can do biblical miracles. I'll never forget as long as I live.
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I'm working out at a gym in North Hollywood and there's a guy there and he was this evangelist healer and I got to know him a little bit and he actually knew his
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Bible fairly well. He knew I was studying to be a pastor and I said, I hurt my back really bad.
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I've got two bad discs and he said, why don't you come to a healing service?
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I said, if you've got the back right now, you've got to come to the service.
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And what you don't see if you watch Benny Hinn on TV and they start doing the Miracle Crusade right at the beginning, do you know what you do not see?
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You do not see the first hour where there's all the songs, all the put your head back, arms up, getting people all ready for all this.
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And if you are really a biblical healer then I want Benny Hinn to call CBS. Have it on video because that's exactly what would happen with these miracles.
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Let's take a look at a couple. Let's look at John, let's just, oh no,
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Acts 4. I didn't know how fast time is going. Time is going by so fast. We're only going to get through half of this tonight.
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Acts chapter 4. These undeniable miracles. It doesn't have to be these people that will tell me, well you know there's some miracle workers going on in the southeast side of Madagascar.
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I've got a missionary friend and I know they're true. That is just ad hoc evidence.
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That doesn't tell me anything. Why do you want to call it a miracle when biblical miracles were undeniable?
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And you could bring in unbelievers. Look at Acts 4 .15. But when they had ordered them to go aside out of the council, they began to confer with one another, saying, what should we do with these men?
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For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem.
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And what are the next five English words? And we cannot deny it.
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No one that ever saw Jesus do a miracle said, you know what, that guy can't do a miracle.
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He did miracles and what did they have to say at the end of the day? They didn't say they were fake.
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They didn't say it was David Copperfield. They didn't say it was some kind of hocus pocus. What did they say?
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It was a miracle and the devil made him do it. Flip Wilson theology, right?
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Who here remembers Flip Wilson? Only a few, sadly, right? It was the devil. The devil was making him do that and the devil has power to do it.
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Here, no one could deny it. How about Nicodemus? Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
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Nicodemus says, you know, you were at that wedding in chapter 2 in Cana and you turned the water into wine and we all affirm it.
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It's out in public. Everyone knows. Benny Hinn said,
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I have received a new mandate from heaven. Bring the message of the miraculous healing power of God back to America.
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Invade our nation with the miracle working power of God. He claimed 1 ,000 people were healed at each of his miracle services.
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But Thomas reported, despite all the thousands of miracles claimed by Benny Hinn, the church seems hard pressed to come up with any that would convince a serious skeptic.
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When pressed for truly convincing miracles, Hinn's spokesperson Susan Smith cited a woman in Orlando who was cured of blindness caused by diabetes, but she would not give the woman's name.
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She later admitted that the woman's vision may still be cloudy. She still has diabetes and was just recently re -hospitalized.
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If you've got the gift of healing in the Bible, what do you do? You can heal anybody spectacularly, undeniably, and the unbelievers say, yes, you did it.
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The source might not be God, but yes, you could do it. Number four. Number four.
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This is one that when I first learned it, I thought, this can't be true. I don't want this to be true.
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This is going to mess up my theology. But if it's true, it's true. Number four.
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Miracles, though of some impact, of course, if you got your eyes back and you could see, that's a great impact, were never an emphasis of the
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Apostles' ministry. What was the emphasis of the Apostles' ministry? Healings?
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What was the number one emphasis? The gospel. Why? Because you can be healed of diabetes and blindness and still go to hell when you die.
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The gospel was the primary important thing. Turn to Mark chapter one, one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible.
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Mark chapter one, and let's see what Jesus did. It wasn't his top priority. It wasn't
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Peter's top priority. It wasn't Paul's top priority. So why do people now who say they've got healing ministries even have a healing ministry?
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They should have gospel ministries. Mark chapter one.
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I could just preach this every single week, practically. This is my favorite passage to preach, especially when
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I'm overseas. South Africa, India, where they're really affected by a lot of the miracle people and signs and wonders.
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You see the posters up. I show up and eight people show up and Benny Hinn shows up and 500 ,000 show up.
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Take a look at this passage, Mark chapter one, verse 34. You've probably heard me preach it. Jesus healed many who were ill with various diseases, cast out many demons, and he was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who he was.
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All right, put yourself in the shoes here. In the early morning, while it was still dark,
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Jesus arose and went out and departed to a lonely place and was praying there.
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And verse 36, and Simon and his companions, what's the
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ESV say? Verse 36. Searched.
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Okay. Searched. NAS is good too. Hunted. They're hunting for him. Why are they hunting for Jesus?
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Jesus just gets done healing all these people. It's going to be another day. You can imagine the lions are out around the back house again and it's another day.
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You wake up. It's time to do more miracles and healings. There's people out there that need miracles and healings and Jesus is gone.
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And Simon and his companions hunted for him. It means to strenuously pursue or to track.
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And this is the best. And they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you.
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You think that's what they said? And they found him with probably sweat on their brow.
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And they finally get there and they say, everything was looking for you.
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I'm going to come back anytime soon, Jesus. I can't prove it, but everything in the text says this.
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And they hunted for him and they found him and said to him, everyone's looking for you.
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I don't think I do this, but maybe they did it. They put their hands on their hips. You can just kind of see their fingers.
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Everyone's looking for you. Who said Bible teaching had to be boring, by the way?
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They're exasperated. They don't want Peter, James and John.
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They want Jesus. And then here comes the bomb. This is the biggest bomb you could ever drop on someone who says, my ministry is miracles.
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And Jesus said to them, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby in order that I may, verse 38, preach there also, for that is what
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I came out for. Isn't that odd? Isn't that surprising?
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I was commissioned to go preach the gospel. I was in South Central LA and I heard
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Dick Lucas preach from this passage and he said, how to ruin your ministry in three easy steps. Step one, get the power to heal all sickness.
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Step two, get a large crowd of sick people. Step three, turn away and tell them you're going on a preaching trip.
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That's what he did. No one should have a healing ministry.
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At best, they should have a gospel ministry. And if they believe in healings, they say, and after we preach the gospel, we talk about physical healing.
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But we'll get to that in a little bit. All right, number five. What time do we have?
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I'm just going to keep going. Till nine we have tonight? Okay, till nine.
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Number five, those with the gift of healing, that shouldn't be plural there, those with the gift of healing were not selective in whom they could heal.
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In other words, they could heal anyone. Let's turn to Acts chapter five. If you can heal people at the centrum of some kind of palsy, some kind of blindness, some kind of diabetes, and you don't go to Worcester Medical Center, then you're a lying fraud.
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You're worse than that. You're a manipulator. Because the biblical miracles, they could heal anyone and everyone.
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And now you say, I've got the gift of healing from God to heal other people, and I'll only go heal people at the convention center who are coming in buses from other churches, and that will come up and give me money, etc.
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I mean, just how bad would it be? What if we talk to Scott Goddard again, who was at Children's Hospital on Friday for the surgery of Nathan?
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And there could really be someone like a Peter, like a Paul, like a Jesus who could walk into the hospital and heal every single person.
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But they say, you know, I don't really want to do that. Friends, it's no different than the
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Pope who says he can give indulgences to people to keep them out of purgatory, but he doesn't give them to anyone unless they give him money.
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That is the most unloving, most horrible thing that could ever happen. If you could get people out of, if there was such a thing, purgatory, you had the ability to do it, but you wouldn't do it except for money?
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No, and I'm not going to heal you unless it's some kind of fake healing. And by the way, when you don't get healed,
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I'm going to say it's on account of your lack of what? Faith. Please.
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Acts 5, 14. What did I say? Acts 28 or Acts 5? Acts 5, verse 14.
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And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number, to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets, so that when
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Peter came by, at least a shadow might fall on any one of them. Not just the ones with the money, not just the ones who came to the concert,
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I mean healing crusade, not just the ones who had a lot of faith, and also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits and they were what?
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What's the next word? All being healed. Not select ones, not with those with crutches or those in a wheelchair.
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How about Acts 28? Turn to Acts chapter 28. I know it's a topical message tonight, but that's okay.
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Someone asked me the other day, do you ever preach topically? I said yes once a year and then I repent. So I preach this one and then repent.
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There's nothing wrong with teaching a topic as long as you understand the context that contributes to the topics.
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Acts 28, 8. And it came about that the father of Publius was lying in bed afflicted with recurrent fever and dysentery.
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Paul went in to see him and after he had prayed, he laid hands on him and healed him. And after this had happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases were coming to him and if they had enough faith, getting cured.
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If they had a couple of centavos, getting cured. If they had a few shekels, getting cured. No, and they were coming to him and getting cured.
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Towards the end when Paul had to say to Timothy, do you know you're kind of a teetotaler,
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Timothy, and you ought to be drinking some of that water that's mixed with wine. It's okay if you do for your stomach's sake.
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Did Paul have a lack of faith because he couldn't heal Timothy? I don't think you'd ever say that.
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I don't think you'd ever say that. All right, one last thing.
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I'm going to do it. I'm just going to go for it. One last one. Number six, we'll have to wait until next time. Do we have service next Sunday night?
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I guess now we do. All right, number six. Number six, there were large periods of biblical time with no miracles.
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The answer's true. Do you know if you take all, I mean, you guys have heard me teach for long enough.
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You take all the biblical miracles throughout the last 10 ,000 years, 6 ,000 years, whatever amount of years you want to say, and you condense them all down, what would be that number?
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How many years would there be biblical, supernatural healings and miracles going on if we compressed it all down?
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Because the question is, well, why doesn't God heal today? If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why doesn't
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He heal today? The real question should be, did God heal every day? Is that just something that God normally does, regularly does?
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God's still alive. He's still powerful. Why doesn't He perform miracles through men of faith today?
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What's the number? How many? About 100 years. That's the right answer.
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About 100 years. And by the way, if you could just open up those 100 years, would you find those healings just kind of scattered haphazardly around?
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No, you'd find them in three time periods. What are the three time periods, Brian? Okay, the three main times where Scripture was being given.
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In the time of Moses and who was his partner? Who took over for him? His partner was
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Aaron, that's good. But the one who took over for him, Joshua. God using
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Moses and Joshua for Scripture. That's time period one. Now there's a few other ones here and there sprinkled in, but these three main ones.
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Moses and Joshua. When was there another time with a lot of prophetic messages going out that were confirmed by miracles and wild things, supernatural things?
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Elijah and Elisha. The final time period, Jesus and the
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Apostles. All three times where Scripture was being given.
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There's a pattern. Three basic time periods of miracles. As Aspel said, the point which stems from this evidence is obvious.
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Miracles are not the norm. I'm going to read that again. Miracles are not the norm and there is no reason to expect them to be.
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They are the exception to the rule. The claim that the church today should expect to experience any blessing enjoyed in the early church is completely without foundation.
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The facts of the biblical record speak clearly to the contrary. Miracles occur only occasionally and temporarily.
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So why were they given? I'm just going to show you one spot and then we've got to close. First Kings 17.
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One spot. Number seven. Number seven. We'll do a little bit more of this next week. Miracles were to authenticate the message and the messenger and or the messenger.
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Just one spot. Next week we'll look at how it applies with Moses and Joshua, but here just quickly in First Kings chapter 17.
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Miracles authenticated the speaker. Miracles authenticated the speaker's message.
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This is the best illustration I think that I can find. It's the clearest, easiest to understand.
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Why were there miracles? First Kings 17 .19. First Kings 17 .19.
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Give me your son, Elijah replied. He took him from her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying and laid him on his bed.
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Then he cried out to the Lord. Oh Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow
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I am staying with by causing her son to die? And he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the
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Lord. Oh Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him. The Lord heard
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Elijah's cry and the boy's life returned to him and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house.
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He gave him to his mother and said, look your son is alive. And now we see the confirmation.
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Mark this down. Don't forget it. Underline it. This is why one of the reasons miracles were given. Miracles were through men.
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They didn't have the Bible. How do you know if the guy is telling the truth or not? He just did a miracle. Verse 24. Then the woman said to Elijah, now
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I know that you are a man of God, a prophet, and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the what?
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Truth. Miracles confirmed that that is the proper message and he is a proper messenger.
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How do you know that I'm preaching the truth? What's the confirmation? Do I need to do a miracle?
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The confirmation is chapter and verse. Every one of you here should know Abendroth was biblical today.
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Abendroth wasn't biblical today. Not by a sign, not by a wonder, but because is it chapter and verse?
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Is he teaching authorial intent? Is he teaching the context? Which leads me into number eight, but I'm going to have to wait until next week.
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Did you just say don't wait? There's only three more?
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Let's see. God is whispering to me in a still small voice. Keep going.
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Okay. You know what? I'm only about 50 minutes in. Let's just do it.
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Number eight. Since we have the Bible, God no longer gives men the gift of miracles. What are you doing, young man?
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I'm just kidding. God does miracles today, but he doesn't do it through them, through men who have the gift of miracles.
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Now, maybe I'd bit off more than I can chew, but I'll try to do it anyway. Which four books of the
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Bible have spiritual gifts in them? There are four books of the Bible that have spiritual gifts. And it's kind of easy to remember 12, 12, 4, 4.
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Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1
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Peter 4. Romans 12, 1
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Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Peter 4 are the only four books of the
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New Testament that have spiritual gifts in them. And they have gifts like tongues. They have gifts like helps.
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They have all those kinds of gifts. Three categories of gifts. Sign gifts, miracles, tongues, healings, interpretation.
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Speaking gifts, teaching. Service gifts, helps.
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So those are the three. Sign gifts, speaking gifts, service gifts.
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Sign gift was something like Elijah had. He did something and then they said, now we know that you're saying the right thing.
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So here's my question. Romans, sign gift, speaking gift, service gift, true or false?
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Does it contain all three? No. Romans doesn't have sign gifts.
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It has speaking gifts, serving gifts. 1 Peter 4, sign gifts, speaking gifts, serving gifts, true or false?
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False. No sign gifts in 1 Peter. Ephesians 4, sign gifts, speaking gifts, serving gifts, true or false?
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No, it's false. Only speaking gifts and serving gifts. 1 Corinthians, sign gifts, speaking gifts, serving gifts.
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Yes. Now here's the $24 ,000 question. $64 ,000 pyramid question.
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Would it help us if we knew when those books were written? If I'm right tonight that as the
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Bible gets put together, we have no need for people pointing to truth and validity because we can confirm truth and validity in the scripture.
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Then there's going to be a dropping off of healing like there was in Acts. Not as many healings as there was at the end of Acts as there were at the beginning.
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And there's a dropping off. The church is growing, the church is maturing. Does the church need sign gifts anymore?
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So my question again, I'll ask it a different way. What book of the Bible that I just gave you between Romans, 1
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Corinthians, Ephesians and 1 Peter, which one do you think was written first? Now, if I'm right, 1
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Corinthians was going to be written first because they're speaking gifts, sign gifts and serving gifts early on because the church needed it because the canon wasn't done.
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But as the canon gets closer to being completed, those are going to drop off. So let me give you the dates where we think these books were written.
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1 Peter 64 AD, Ephesians 63 AD, Romans 58
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AD and 1 Corinthians 54 AD. Early on, sign gifts were happening.
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There was really biblical speaking in tongues, biblical miracles, biblical healings, biblical interpretation of tongues, word of wisdom.
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The list goes on. But by the time you start having the canon get put together, no more of those gifts listed in those lists.
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Early Acts, everybody was getting healed at the ends of Acts. There's a lot of people who were sick and dying.
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Okay, I could say more but I'm going to just power through. Number nine, God performs great miracles today, true or false? What's the biggest supernatural miracle
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God does and He does it on a regular basis? I'm really glad He does. He saves people.
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He that believeth on Me, the works that I shall do, He shall do also. And greater works than these shall
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He do because I go to the Father. As He talks to the apostles, people get saved. Of course
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He does great things today. And by the way, I think He does miracles. I just don't think He does them through people who have the gift of miracles.
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Number 10, from time to time in the Bible, miraculous things were done by people who were not saints.
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True. Can you think of any? Judas probably could do those things.
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I don't think we have any record of Judas doing supernatural healings and miracles. But if he couldn't, he would have been exposed early on.
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So I think logically Judas could do those things even though I can't prove it biblically. Okay, good.
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In Matthew chapter 7, good. How about when
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Pharaoh speaks to you saying, work a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff, throw it down before Pharaoh that it may become a serpent.
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So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and thus they did just as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants and it became a serpent.
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Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.
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They say, well, it could have been sleight of hand, could have been demonic. 2 Corinthians makes it clear, false apostles can be deceitful workers.
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2 Thessalonians 2, the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders.
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So just because you can do some kind of miracle, it doesn't mean you're automatically of God or from God.
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All right. And then number 11, let the Bible interpret your experience or let your inexperience interpret your
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Bible. Which one? Which one's first? Which one authenticates the other? And we know the answer here.
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Scripture authenticates our experience, not the other way around. And we'll talk about this next
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Sunday morning when I preach that Peter, James and John see Jesus transfigured on the
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Mount of Transfiguration. And he says, I heard, I saw, Peter says in 2
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Peter 1, 16 to 21. But there's something more sure than hearing, more sure than seeing. And that is what?
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The prophetic word of God. So in summary,
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I'd say this. If you think people can do miracles today, my question is, why?
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Why are they needed today? Why aren't the miracles that the person who says you could, that you could, you say that they can do miracles.
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Why don't they go to the hospital and why don't they match up to what biblical miracles would be like curing dead people, raising dead people up?
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And the answer is because I believe most people today have a dumbed down version of miracles because in their heart of hearts, they want
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God to do great things. He does do great things. But one of the biggest miracles
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God ever does is providentially work everything together for our good. And that's another subject. Okay, so we powered through, we made it.
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Is that it? Was that the last one or is there one more? All right. Good.
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Happy Father's Day. Let's pray. Father, the miracle of all miracles is making us born again.
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And with Peter, we say, thank you and blessed be your name that you caused us to be born again, that we have a living hope.
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We have an inheritance that can't be corrupted, that can't be defiled, that can't be taken away. I just pray that you'd bless these folks tonight.
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I thank you for Bethlehem Bible Church. Thank you for the privilege of being able to preach the word to them and have them say, just keep going, keep preaching.
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Father, what a joy they are to me. And I pray that you'd bless them tonight for being here in fellowship of the saints and under the word.