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Should We Expect Miracles Today?
Definition of a miracle: A miracle is an extraordinary event wrought by God that cannot be explained by any natural means.
This morning we are going to explore what we can know about whether or not we should expect the types of miracles which happened in Acts to happen today. There are those today who not only insist that they can perform the type of miracles that we saw God perform through the disciples last week, but they even speak of different types of miracles. In fact, rather than me putting words into their mouths, let’s listen to two such teachers who claim that miracles are commonplace in their ministries:
| 1. |
Benny Hinn—Jesus
to appear at His meetings
[audio] |
To no one’s surprise Jesus never appeared!
| 2. |
Kenneth Copeland—Astral
projection: to preach without a body
[audio] |
This, too, never happened!
But should we expect miracles like that to take place? Well, lets look at what we see in Scripture regarding miracles.
We can see seven Biblical facts about miracles:
1. |
The vast majority of Biblical miracles happened in 3 eras. None of those periods lasted much more than a hundred years. |
| A. | The days of Moses and Joshua - the time of the giving of the Law | |
| B. | During the ministries of Elijah and Elisha - introduced the prophetic office, the prophetic age, and all of the Books of Prophecies (Major Prophets, Minor Prophets). | |
| C. |
In the time of Christ and the Apostles - obviously. Christ did
miracles, the apostles did miracles. That introduced the era of the
New Testament revelation. |
Only three eras, always to authenticate those who spoke the revelation of God, and always with the purpose of pointing to the revelation so that it is the revelation that is the important thing!
2. |
The book of Acts is a transitional book. |
It fits into the last of the three eras I just mentioned. The church age is being inaugurated. We see many things in the book of Acts which we rarely see or never see at all in the epistles. For instance, we see believers selling all that they have and we see what happened to Ananias & Sapphira. IN FACT, MANY OF THE THINGS WRITTEN IN ACTS WERE WRITTEN BECAUSE THEY WERE EXTRAORDINARY, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE TYPICAL.
3. |
The Bible calls these miracles “signs and wonders.” And what is a sign for? A sign is to point to something. |
4. |
Hebrews was written after the events recorded in Acts Hebrews was written before 70 AD, most probably around 68 AD. The book of Acts takes us up to about 62 AD. |
Look at Hebrews 2:3-4. The word “confirmed” is in the past tense. This verb is passive and it is in the past tense.
5. |
The fact that it is passive makes it clear that these miracles were not done by man, but by God. But for our purposes the key is that the word “confirmed” is in the past tense. |
If God wanted to stress that these miracles were still happening, then He could have used the present tense and it could be translated “confirming,” meaning that these miracles were still occurring. But again Hebrews was written after Acts and speaks of these miracles in the past tense. Also, it is important to notice that the author makes it clear that the purpose of the miracles was to “confirm,” that is to substantiate or verify the truth of the gospel. BEBAIOW MEANS "TO PUT SOMETHING BEYOND DOUBT" OR "TO CAUSE SOMEONE TO BE FIRM OR ESTABLISHED IN BELIEF." So they were signs to confirm the gospel message.
If you read the epistles from Romans to Jude, you will not see myriad miracles taking place. In fact, if you read the Pastoral Epistles—1 & 2 Timothy & Titus—so named because they speak about the inner workings of the church, you will not see these types of miracles.
6. |
Nothing in Scripture indicates that the miracles of the Apostle's Age were meant to be continuous. |
If you keep reading in the Book of Acts and you will get to the part in the Book of Acts where you finally say to yourself, "I haven't read a miracle in a long time," and you'll finish the whole book and never see another one! They had begun to cease even in the Book of Acts.
Furthermore, think about this:
| a. | We read about praying for the sick in 1 John 5 and sick people in some of the epistles. Why pray for them instead of heal them? |
| b. | The Apostle Paul Recommends Wine Instead of Healing |
1Timothy 5:23
Use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and frequent ailments.
| c. | Paul did not heal Trophimus: |
2 Timothy 4:20
Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.”
| d. | Paul himself had physical ailments like his “thorn in the flesh.” |
7. |
Jesus warned of false teachers claiming to perform miracles in the end times. |
Do we live in the end times? Yes. Listen to what Jesus Himself said: "False Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." Then He added, as if knowing that many would ignore the warning, "Behold, I have told you in advance" (Matt 24:24-25).
Now let’s do a sort of test run, shall we. Let’s see what some of these false teachers are teaching. If we listen closely to the teachings of many of these who claim to perform miracles than we can see whether they are true to God’s word or not.
We have seen that false teachers will arise in the end times and they will do miracles, or at least claim to be doing miracles and lead people astray. The Bible makes it clear that we are to “test the Spirits.” Listen to 1 John 4:1 and remember that 1 John was written to Christians:
1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
We are commanded to “test the Spirits.” Today many will tell you that it mean spirited to do what I am doing. Listen, I am just following Scripture. I am in no way saying anything personally against any of these teachers, I am simply judging their teaching. That is biblical. In fact, it is a command.
Now, one sign of a false teacher is that they never truly understand God. Listen to one such false teacher attempt to explain the Trinity:
A. |
Misunderstanding of Trinity: |
|
*Benny Hinn - 9 of them |
Wow! That is all that I can say about that! The Bible clearly teaches that the Godhead is 3 not 9. Listen to these two verses:
Matthew 28:19:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
2 Cor. 13:14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
These are but two verses which mention 3 persons of the Godhead not 9. And then he also claimed that God had a body, or a spirit body as he called it. Well John 4:24 says that “God is spirit.”
John 4:24
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Many false teachers will even deny that Jesus is God: Listen to this:
B. |
Misunderstanding of Jesus: |
|
*Kenneth Copeland & P. Crouch
- Jesus may not be God |
Folks, this is not a professing Jehovah’s witness or Mormon, but a professing Christian saying this. In fact the Bible says this about Jesus being God:
In speaking to the Jews, Jesus said this in John 8:58:
John 8:58:
Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.
The “I Am” refers back to the Old Testament title for Yahweh, God the Father. Jesus was clearly saying that He was God. And the Jews knew it which is why they wanted to kill Him so bad!
Furthermore, in John 10:30 Jesus said “"I and the Father are one." The Jews again wanted to stone Him because they knew that He was claiming to be God. Elsewhere Jesus says “if you have seen me you have seen the Father.” So, indeed Jesus did claim to be God.
C. |
Misunderstanding of Christ’s Atonement: |
|
Fred Price -
Jesus suffers in hell |
Well, according to the Bible it was Jesus’ physical death that secured our salvation. What else did Jesus mean when He said “It is finished!” He further said to God the Father: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” He didn’t say into Satan’s hands or into hell.
D. |
Misunderstanding of the Christian life regarding wealth: |
|
*Fred
Price |
E. |
Misunderstanding of the Christian life regarding health: |
|
*Fred Price - True
Christians don't get sick |
Well, I guess that Paul & Timothy were not true Christians. In fact, Job must have really been a bad sinner! God has made it clear that to the believer He has “granted not only that we believe, but that we suffer.”
Philippians 1:29
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake
Just one more because I couldn't resist. This one speaks for itself.
Benny Hinn - Adam was the original Superman
Conclusion:
I am not saying that God cannot perform the types of miracles today that we see in the book of Acts and the gospels, because He certainly can if He wants to. In fact, we can see in Scripture that many miracles will take place during the Tribulation, for instance. Also, there are people in other countries where the church is certainly not as mature as here in America. This is due mainly to not having the Scripture readily available as we do. So some of these people around the world may be living in similar circumstances as those in the book of Acts. This can be particularly true for those areas where few if any have heard of the gospel. In these areas, God may use certain miracles to “confirm” the gospel message. But I think that the Biblical evidence should lead us to conclude that these types of miracles are certainly not the NORM in our era.
