Of Horses and Carts

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:31)

I am amazed at those preachers who specialize on the miraculous for publicity; from exorcists to seers and everything in between.

They have one thing in common. They think that people will flock to Christ after seeing those superhuman feats.

And people will flock, but only as they flock to see a magician and acrobat to be wowed, and nothing else.

Is there a place for miracles then in the believer’s life? I know someone is asking.

Of course there is, and plenty in fact.

But the reality is that only the believer can benefit from a miracle.

A miracle is a confirmation that what he has believed is legit. It is God’s substantiation of what He has spoken to the ones who have believed it.

And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. (Mark 16:20)

I do not know whether you realize that the same miracle that evokes worship in one is treated as a stunt by another.

I am not talking about disputable things that can be argued or explained away. We are dealing with things that can only be explained by acknowledging God’s touch or intervention. Things like a cancer being dissolved, a completely insane fellow becoming normal, someone who was on the verge of death regaining immediate health, etc.

My point is this, miracles are for believers. They are acts of God to accompany our faith in His word.

The only thing we are called on to believe is God’s word. Faith is the product of that. That faith then opens us to access His creative and intervening power so that we can obey His word even further.

The sad reality is that we love drama and stunts until we convince ourselves that a miracle is what we need to believe. But Christ is saying that we must believe His word to see those miracles.

Remember the resurrection?

The soldiers made a honest report to the leaders about what they saw and heard.

Did the leaders believe? Of course they didn’t, however indisputable and compelling the evidence was.

They bribed the witnesses and their boss to falsify the facts.

Why did they not believe?

They had a problem with the scriptures and the originator of the same. It meant that they had to look for a way to falsify the facts to agree with their narrative.

Our faith is as valid as the word we believe. And it is no wonder that many people who follow the miracle and wonder workers have issues with obedience to Christ. That is why there is a lot of abuse from the ‘anointed’ and his clique since he then becomes the source of words to obey. It is also because he also does not follow the scriptures that he pays lip service to.

The only foundation of our faith is the word of God. Miracles must be a product of our fidelity to that word. Otherwise they will never lead to Christ.

Otherwise explain to me why most of the people Jesus walked among did not believe in Him since He was the embodiment of a miracle. Why did the people of Elijah’s time not completely turn to God after their idols were trumped and God demonstrated His power over everything?

Why did people follow John the Baptist yet he had no miracle accompanying his ministry?

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17)

God’s miracles are the product of that faith, and nothing else.

It is our fidelity to that word that will lead people to believing in God who will then release His power over situations (which is what a miracle is) to the one who believes.

Our main job then as ministers and believers is to commit to the word of God since it is the only one that has the capacity to draw people to God.

Focusing elsewhere is counterproductive and misleading as it will be operating on the misleading theology the rich man in hell held, that a miracle was what his brothers needed to escape hell.

Isn’t this then a rebuke to so many preachers who gather their facts from all over to make their sermons juicier and more palatable to their parishioners? Isn’t it a rebuke to evangelists who spend years to work on their stage presence so that they can have more fire to move crowds? Isn’t it a rebuke to singers who think that being contemporal in their songs can reach the lost?

We have chosen to forget that our history as the church of Christ was built on the Bible and nothing else. Even the battles that were fought revolved around the word with believers committed to the word while the others (many times religious and political leaders) were fighting to remove it from running the lives of believers. The focus of persecution to this day is removing the word of God from running the lives of believers.

Will we commit to the only thing that can lead people to our Savior, His word?

Otherwise we could as well be wasting our lives and resources on things with absolutely nil value in eternity.

The seed is the word of the Kingdom. That is what Christ said.