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Miracles

John 14: 9 – 21

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 12 Mar, 2006

I ENJOYED the second part of that video on Miracles last week. I think it was much better than the first part. It got me thinking — what do we know about miracles in our own church?

The late John Wimber taught a course at Fuller Theological Seminary, called, A course in miracles. Do we need a course in miracles?

I don’t know much about miracles. I have seen a couple in my lifetime. But shouldn’t we try to discover principles and practice them?

Of course, miracles are never the norm.

Although the apostles and many of the first Christians performed miracles, and although miracles have never ceased, they can’t be the norm. They are always abnormal.

Someone on that videotape said that he figured that God isn’t primarily in the business of miracles, and that’s why miracles don’t occur more often. That is true.

If miracles were the norm, that would mean that ordinary laws of nature are unpredictable.

Most miracles are either extra-ordinary applications of ordinary principles, or they are ordinary events in unexpected places or at unexpected times.

How did the Israelites cross the Sea when they escaped from Egypt? People used to say, “It’s just an old legend.” But then they looked more closely at history and geology, and realised that the eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera in the Mediterranean was probably when the Israelites were crossing the water. It would have caused major earth tremors and would easily have parted the sea for several hours before it all rushed back. There would have been a visible pillar of smoke and fire. There would have been all kinds of weather phenomena.

But why was it just as the Israelites were deciding, after over 400 years, to leave Egypt? Ordinary principles, extraordinary timing.

Remember the old lady whose cupboard was bare, so she knelt and prayed for food?

Some young louts passing by heard her, and, to laugh at her faith, they bought a loaf of bread and threw it in the window.

Immediately she knelt again and thanked God for answering her.

The men called to her and said, “God didn’t give it to you: we heard you and threw it in!”

She just said, “Why you did it doesn’t matter to me. God put it in your hearts; and I thank you for responding, and him for sending it through you.” Ordinary principles, and an extra–ordinary God.

I have seen unexpected healings, I have received inexplicable provision. I told you about the mini–revival among our young people at Beth Shan Mission. It happened simultaneously among the teenagers, even though they were away from the rest of us and away from any formal meeting. The Spirit of God communicated the same thing to everyone at once.

So when we talk about miracles the laws of nature aren’t necessarily overturned. But we don’t rule that out, either. When Moses prayed and the sun stood still in the sky, it seems that the ordinary laws of nature were cancelled for a little while. And when Jesus rose again, that wasn’t what happens normally, either.

One key Bible passage about miracles is the one we read:

¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. ¹² I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. ¹⁴ You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

There are several points for us to notice.

First, Jesus points to his miracles as part of the evidence for who he is, a back–up to the truth of what he says about himself.

Second, he expects people who have faith in him to do things like what he was doing.

Third, he promises special support to those who ask “...in my name,” as he puts it.

Evidentiary miracles

The first area is miracles as evidence of God’s goodness to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

If you go back to the earliest days, God used signs and wonders to reveal his own power and goodness to his people.

Going back to the Israelites in Egypt, you will remember that Moses told Pharaoh, “Let my people go!” and Pharaoh said, “Why should I?” God did miracles through Moses: plagues of frogs and of flies; the river turned to blood — probably red algae, which can turn water into a blood–like fluid. Finally God sent his destroying angel to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, unless the blood of the passover lamb was sprinkled on the door lintel and the doorposts. Every time, it was God’s power, mediated through Moses, demonstrating that God is greater than the gods and the powers of Egyptian belief.

Then remember the Israelites crossing the Sea, or Joshua at Jericho. Again, God’s power was manifest to show care for his people.

I like the story of Elijah against false religion. He stood alone against the prophets of Ba‘al. He summoned them to a contest on Mount Carmel. He said, “Build an altar and sacrifice to your god.” He told them to call on their god to answer by fire and consume toe offering. They called and called. They shouted and screamed. They danced and cut themselves, but their god was silent.

Then Elijah rebuilt God’s altar and sacrificed at the time of the evening sacrifice. He laid the wood on the altar and the flesh on the wood. He dug a trench around the altar, and poured water on, bucket after bucket, until everything was saturated and water filled the trench.

Then he prayed to God, the Lord, who answered with fire and consumed the offering and the wood and the water in the trench, and even burnt the stones of the altar.

The crowd shouted, “Yahweh — he is God!”

God proved himself through that miracle.

And Jesus proved himself through the works he did. He made the blind to see and the cripple to walk. He drove out demons and healed the sick. He stilled storms and walked on water. He fed the hungry and proclaimed good news to the outcast and the oppressed. And he died and rose again.

I could preach for hours on all that he did.

And the apostles followed him.

Peter raised Dorcas from the dead and healed the cripple, Anaeas — all through the powerful Name of Jesus. Together with John, he healed the crippled man at the temple — in the Name of Jesus.

Paul drove the fortune–telling demon out of the slave girl in Philippi.

Paul also spoke God’s judgment on Elymas the magician when he opposed the gospel. Elymas became blind for a while.

And Paul was bitten by a snake and shook it off into the fire. There was no lasting injury.

Mark’s gospel has an old ending that says,

MK 16:15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

We might wonder whether Mark wrote that but there is no doubt that it sums up what Jesus taught and what the apostles experienced, and what Christians down through the ages have known to be true.

Results of faith

When we studied I Thessalonians, we saw that faith, hope and love are the three basic things in Christian living; and that is still true for this question of miracles.

Jesus says,

¹² I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

But he also talks about loving him, and discovering that he and the Father come to us and remain with us. We need faith to depend on God and love to know that he is good. We need hope to expect to experience the Kingdom in the here and now. All three are basic.

But we have to be careful. What works did Jesus do? Of course we know that he healed the sick and raised the dead. But what was the basis? Didn’t he — above all else — sacrifice himself for us? If we think we can be used by God as a channel for miracles without first making ourselves available as sacrificial offerings to our Lord and to the world around us, we must be dreaming.

There have been legendary miracle–workers through the ages, who all knew how to be broken. Gregory Thaumaturgos was one. He was such a great miracle worker that they gave him that name, Thaumaturgos, meaning “Worker of Miracles.” He had gone to Syria to study law. He went to a great Christian Academy there, and soon became a Christian instead.

He could have been famous in Alexandria or Athens or Rome, but he became bishop of Neocaesarea, where there were only 17 Christians. His one goal was to serve Christ, and he touched lives in many ways. He faced hardship and rejection so that Jesus would be glorified in the land where he went;

It takes faith to do that.

How often do you and I take easy options, choose not to suffer, decide that people can look after themselves when the Lord is saying, “They need to hear through you!”?

Love expressed through faith, always looking forward to God’s perfect Kingdom, when all evil and all sickness and all wrong will be ended — that is what God uses to work miracles! It is more likely that God will work a miracle when we are just getting about his business, when we are serving in Jesus name; it is more likely that God will perform wonders when we are performing ordinary deeds of ministry, than that he will do anything just because we want to see something exciting happen.

In Jesus’ Name

The third thing is that miracles happen when we ask in Jesus’ name.

We often tag on, “In Jesus‘ name, Amen!” at the end of a prayer, just because that’s the form of words that we use.

What Jesus really means is that we appeal to his authority, like the policemen appealed to the Queen’s authority in The Pirates of Penzances.

I saw a startling example some years ago when a demonised woman attended one of our functions. At first I didn’t realise that that was her problem, because I don’t want to get all excited about demons. Anyway, I demanded that the demons tell me whether Jesus had come in the flesh, and they refused to answer. They told me they were more powerful than I am, and I was really scared. But then I remembered that Jesus has all the authority, and it is in his name that we command them. So I said, “I am not asking in my own authority, but in the authority of Jesus, and you must obey him.” At once they said, “He didn’t come in the flesh.”

So I had them. They had shown their evil intent. I declared that, by God’s word, they were heretical spirits, and I ordered them out — in Jesus’ name.

Sadly, they took the woman with them.

The name of the Lord is a strong and mighty tower...

They knew that the authority and power came from Jesus, and they could not withstand his word.

That’s what it means to speak or to pray or to act in Jesus’ name.

I could command them to answer because I am authorised by Jesus to command evil spirits not to withstand the gospel.

So are you.

In the name of Jesus,

In the name of Jesus,

We have authority;

In the name of Jesus

In the name of Jesus,

Demons will have to flee.

I am not proposing some superstitious theory with demons under every bed, but I am saying that Jesus gives great authority to the simplest believer. You can do it!

What does this mean? It means that acting, that praying, that ministering in any way in the name of Jesus means that you are acting in a way that has been authorised by him.

As Jesus says,

I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.

If it is something that Jesus authorised, or something that Jesus clearly wills, we can ask it and he says he will do it.

So don’t imagine that you can just ask for anything and you will have it. That plasma TV might have to wait until you can afford it; that new Jaguar isn’t on the miracles list unless there is a very good reason for God to do that.

But if it is something which will make the Kingdom of God grow and extend, then you have a very good reason to expect that those prayers will be answered. If it is to drive out the powers of evil, you are on track. If it is to increase justice and mercy and righteousness, it is part of the glory of God’s kingdom and you are right to seek God’s will in the matter and determine if it is something the Lord Jesus has truly authorised you to do something about.

Conclusion

Today, let’s do something practical.

To sum up,

• Miracles are not the norm, but they do occur.

• When miracles occur, they are, in particular, evidence of the divine authority and power of our Lord Jesus.

• It is people who have faith in and love for Jesus who have a particular ability to work miracles.

• A key to miracles is that we ask in the name of Jesus; that is, we ask according to what he has authorised.

• We can’t demand that God should perform miracles, but we can bring situations before him and ask.

I am going to give us an opportunity this morning to practice.

If you are comfortable with this, I will ask you to come out the front somewhere and find another person. Ask that person what miracle he or she is looking for. Talk a little to discover what the real need is, then pray for that person. Pray with your eyes open — you may see God at work, or something to respond to. Let God work. AMEN.

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)