The Miracles of God
Bible Study Time 11-19-06
Church links:
Bible Study Time 11-19-06
Last week we looked at the fact that God is still doing miracles today just as He did throughout the years of the Old Testament and through the early years of the New Testament. First, we saw that God is a loving God who continuously does miracles for saved and unsaved people alike. He causes the rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. Many of the things that we see around us day-by-day come straight from the hand of God, but we so often take them for granted and fail to praise the Lord for them. Our health, the crops that grow, our ability to learn and reason, all of these things are miracles of God.
Then we saw that God has a specific plan and purpose for the earth, and we saw that God always has and always will use His mighty power to accomplish His plan and purpose. God saved David from the bear and the lion and then from Goliath, and He did so because God had chosen David to become the greatest king that this world has ever known. God parted the waters of the Red Sea to deliver Israel from the Egyptians because God plans to make Israel the centerpiece of His eternal kingdom. For this very reason, we know that God will continue to protect and preserve Israel all the way through our present age and through the years of the tribulation period for this very reason.
Therefore, if we, as believers today, want to see God doing great miracles in our lives, we have to be moving in concert with God’s overall plan and purpose. A few weeks ago, we saw the great rebellion of King Ahaz in Judah. He got so angry at God that he drug the altars of the temple out into the streets of Jerusalem and then he locked the doors of the temple. Needless to say, Ahaz lived a life of miserable failure, and he saw none of the mighty miracles of God.
However, his son, Hezekiah, dedicated his heart and his kingdom to God. He opened the doors of the temple, and he commanded the priests to serve the Lord in accordance with the laws of God. As a result, Hezekiah witnessed many of the greatest miracles of God. When Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came with his army and laid siege to Jerusalem, Hezekiah went before the Lord to ask for deliverance. He said:
II Kings 19:19 (NKJ)
19 "Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from (the hand of the kings of Assyria), that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God . . . "
Because of Hezekiah’s prayer, God sent a message to Hezekiah through Isaiah that said:
II Kings 19:32-34 (NKJ)
32 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: 'He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city,' says the LORD.
34 'For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake.' "
Then the Bible says:
II Kings 19:35-36 (NKJ)
35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses-- all dead.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.
Later, Hezekiah became sick to the point of death, and Isaiah told Hezekiah:
II Kings 20:1 (NKJ)
1 "Thus says the LORD: 'Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.'"
Then the Bible says that Hezekiah “turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD.” Then Isaiah came back to Hezekiah and said:
II Kings 20:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD.
6 "And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.”
So we can see from this that Hezekiah was a man who had dedicated his life to the Lord, and he was moving in concert with the plan and purpose of God. As a result, he enjoyed the blessings of God, and he saw the Lord do many great miracles.
It is such a blessing to look back at these events that took place in Israel’s history. In these historical events, we see the power of God, and we see the great and mighty things that God can do in and through people who dedicate their lives to the Lord.
However, we do have to be aware of the fact that the nation of Israel had a different relationship with God than we do. God had made a covenant with them at Mt. Sinai and in that covenant, God promised them that if they would serve Him wholeheartedly, He would bless them with health and peace and prosperity. That was a promise that our nation does not have today.
Even in Israel that promise was given to the nation as a whole, and we should not conclude that every faithful Jew in the nation of Israel became rich or that they were shielded from all adversity. The prophets are a good example of faithful men who had to suffer greatly for their testimony. Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day:
Luke 11:47-48 (NKJ)
47 "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 "In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
As it was then, so it is today. Many faithful believers throughout our present age have had to suffer great hardships because of their faithfulness to Christ. But even as we suffer for the Lord, we are comforted in our knowledge that God is sovereign and that God is a miracle-working God. When we suffer, we know that God has a purpose for our suffering, and He will reward us for our faithfulness.
When we suffer, we can pray with full confidence for a miracle from the Lord, knowing that He is able to do miracles, and we can rest assured that God will use all of His mighty power to accomplish His perfect plan for our lives.
If we, in times of trouble, were to seek our own will instead of the perfect will of God, we would find ourselves in a position of rebellion against God. Many people in times of rebellion have steadfastly and doggedly pursued their own desires, seeking their own will, and some have accomplished great things in the eyes of the world. Nevertheless, they have found no blessing from God in their accomplishments, and they will find no reward when they stand before Him on the Day of Judgment.
When Jesus came to the earth, introducing the message of the New Covenant Kingdom, He went before the people with the power to do miracles. He had the power within Himself to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to do all kinds of other miracles. One woman simply touched His garment, and her body was healed. Jesus didn’t do any surgery. He didn’t give her any medicine. She simply touched His garment, and the Bible says that Jesus felt the healing power as it left His body and went into her body.
Jesus gave the power to do miracles to His disciples, and Luke 9 says that “they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.” Now we know that God does miracles today, but this passage brings us to a totally different question. Does God give the gift of miracles to individuals today? Does God give individuals the gift of healing, or the gift of discerning spirits, or the gift of prophecy, and so forth and so on?
When we rightly divide the word of God, we see that there is a big difference between what God was doing in the gospels and during the Acts period and what He is doing today. Those differences relate to the fact that in the gospels and during the Acts period, God was offering the New Covenant Kingdom to Israel while today He is not.
In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he said that he wrote as a minister of the New Covenant, and in I Corinthians he said:
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 (NKJ)
7 . . . the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Now as we get over into the epistles that Paul wrote after the Acts period, we see a different story. In Ephesians, Chapter 4, Paul said that:
Ephesians 4:8,11,12,13 (NKJ)
8 . . . "When (Christ) ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men."
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
Here we see no gifts that relate to miracles. We see no gifts of knowledge or healing. If someone comes to you and says that God told them to tell you the reason for your sickness. Don’t believe it. That’s a trick of the devil to manipulate you. If they say that they know the very sin in your life that has caused your children to be sick, don’t fall for that. Those special gifts of knowledge and discernment do not exist today.
If you are a believer, then you have the Holy Spirit living within you. God has promised to speak to you through the Holy Spirit as you read the written word of God, and the Holy Spirit will speak to you as your pastors and teachers preach and teach the written word of God.
Paul mentions apostles and prophets in Ephesians 4 only because, as he wrote that epistle, the word of God was not yet complete. Since we now have God’s completed word, we no longer need apostles and prophets. We no longer need anyone to speak the words of God with the infallible authority of an apostle or a prophet.
When pastors and teachers teach the word of God today, we should do so with the understanding that we are fallible, that we are learning and growing in our understanding of the word. We do not speak with the authority of an apostle or a prophet.
God has determined that for the Church today to grow into a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, all we need is the word of God, the Holy Spirit and people who are gifted as pastors, teachers and/or evangelists.
In the Old Testament, God gave the prophets the ability to do miracles so that the people would know that they spoke with the authority of God. Moses did the signs in the sight of the people, and the people believed. Elijah called down fire from heaven, and the people cried out, “The Lord, He is God.”
When Jesus Christ came to the earth, preaching the New Covenant Kingdom, He did miracles to validate His message. He told the people that He was the very Son of God, and He did miracles to prove that His message was true.
The Apostles went out during the Acts period, preaching the hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. God gave them the power to do miracles so that the people would know that they were true apostles, speaking with the authority of God. They were asking the people to believe that Jesus had come back from the dead and that He had been taken up into heaven. As you can imagine, that message needed some extraordinary proof, so God gave them that proof in the form of miracles, miracles that were done right in front of their eyes.
When Paul was called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, he went out during the Acts period as a minister of the New Covenant. He went out telling people that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins and that He had been raised from the dead to give them eternal life. His message was validated by miracles. As Paul wrote to the Galatians during the Acts period, he said:
Galatians 3:5 (NKJ)
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?--
The miracles that Paul did during the Acts period confirmed the fact that Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Therefore, all of the Apostles were confirmed by miracles, but when Israel’s New Covenant program was rejected by the nation of Israel at the end of the Acts period, God set aside the New Covenant program and with it He set aside the gifts that were related to the miracles.
Today, we live under the program for the Church which is the Body of Christ. No preacher or teacher or evangelist speaks today with the authority of an apostle or a prophet because we already have the completed word of God. God still does mighty miracles, and every day we should expect to see the Lord working in miraculous ways, but we need to recognize that today God does not give the gift of miracles to individual believers.
Thank you for studying with me this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Then we saw that God has a specific plan and purpose for the earth, and we saw that God always has and always will use His mighty power to accomplish His plan and purpose. God saved David from the bear and the lion and then from Goliath, and He did so because God had chosen David to become the greatest king that this world has ever known. God parted the waters of the Red Sea to deliver Israel from the Egyptians because God plans to make Israel the centerpiece of His eternal kingdom. For this very reason, we know that God will continue to protect and preserve Israel all the way through our present age and through the years of the tribulation period for this very reason.
Therefore, if we, as believers today, want to see God doing great miracles in our lives, we have to be moving in concert with God’s overall plan and purpose. A few weeks ago, we saw the great rebellion of King Ahaz in Judah. He got so angry at God that he drug the altars of the temple out into the streets of Jerusalem and then he locked the doors of the temple. Needless to say, Ahaz lived a life of miserable failure, and he saw none of the mighty miracles of God.
However, his son, Hezekiah, dedicated his heart and his kingdom to God. He opened the doors of the temple, and he commanded the priests to serve the Lord in accordance with the laws of God. As a result, Hezekiah witnessed many of the greatest miracles of God. When Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came with his army and laid siege to Jerusalem, Hezekiah went before the Lord to ask for deliverance. He said:
II Kings 19:19 (NKJ)
19 "Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from (the hand of the kings of Assyria), that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God . . . "
Because of Hezekiah’s prayer, God sent a message to Hezekiah through Isaiah that said:
II Kings 19:32-34 (NKJ)
32 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: 'He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city,' says the LORD.
34 'For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake.' "
Then the Bible says:
II Kings 19:35-36 (NKJ)
35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses-- all dead.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.
Later, Hezekiah became sick to the point of death, and Isaiah told Hezekiah:
II Kings 20:1 (NKJ)
1 "Thus says the LORD: 'Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.'"
Then the Bible says that Hezekiah “turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD.” Then Isaiah came back to Hezekiah and said:
II Kings 20:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD.
6 "And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.”
So we can see from this that Hezekiah was a man who had dedicated his life to the Lord, and he was moving in concert with the plan and purpose of God. As a result, he enjoyed the blessings of God, and he saw the Lord do many great miracles.
It is such a blessing to look back at these events that took place in Israel’s history. In these historical events, we see the power of God, and we see the great and mighty things that God can do in and through people who dedicate their lives to the Lord.
However, we do have to be aware of the fact that the nation of Israel had a different relationship with God than we do. God had made a covenant with them at Mt. Sinai and in that covenant, God promised them that if they would serve Him wholeheartedly, He would bless them with health and peace and prosperity. That was a promise that our nation does not have today.
Even in Israel that promise was given to the nation as a whole, and we should not conclude that every faithful Jew in the nation of Israel became rich or that they were shielded from all adversity. The prophets are a good example of faithful men who had to suffer greatly for their testimony. Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day:
Luke 11:47-48 (NKJ)
47 "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 "In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
As it was then, so it is today. Many faithful believers throughout our present age have had to suffer great hardships because of their faithfulness to Christ. But even as we suffer for the Lord, we are comforted in our knowledge that God is sovereign and that God is a miracle-working God. When we suffer, we know that God has a purpose for our suffering, and He will reward us for our faithfulness.
When we suffer, we can pray with full confidence for a miracle from the Lord, knowing that He is able to do miracles, and we can rest assured that God will use all of His mighty power to accomplish His perfect plan for our lives.
If we, in times of trouble, were to seek our own will instead of the perfect will of God, we would find ourselves in a position of rebellion against God. Many people in times of rebellion have steadfastly and doggedly pursued their own desires, seeking their own will, and some have accomplished great things in the eyes of the world. Nevertheless, they have found no blessing from God in their accomplishments, and they will find no reward when they stand before Him on the Day of Judgment.
When Jesus came to the earth, introducing the message of the New Covenant Kingdom, He went before the people with the power to do miracles. He had the power within Himself to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to do all kinds of other miracles. One woman simply touched His garment, and her body was healed. Jesus didn’t do any surgery. He didn’t give her any medicine. She simply touched His garment, and the Bible says that Jesus felt the healing power as it left His body and went into her body.
Jesus gave the power to do miracles to His disciples, and Luke 9 says that “they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.” Now we know that God does miracles today, but this passage brings us to a totally different question. Does God give the gift of miracles to individuals today? Does God give individuals the gift of healing, or the gift of discerning spirits, or the gift of prophecy, and so forth and so on?
When we rightly divide the word of God, we see that there is a big difference between what God was doing in the gospels and during the Acts period and what He is doing today. Those differences relate to the fact that in the gospels and during the Acts period, God was offering the New Covenant Kingdom to Israel while today He is not.
In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he said that he wrote as a minister of the New Covenant, and in I Corinthians he said:
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 (NKJ)
7 . . . the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Now as we get over into the epistles that Paul wrote after the Acts period, we see a different story. In Ephesians, Chapter 4, Paul said that:
Ephesians 4:8,11,12,13 (NKJ)
8 . . . "When (Christ) ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men."
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
Here we see no gifts that relate to miracles. We see no gifts of knowledge or healing. If someone comes to you and says that God told them to tell you the reason for your sickness. Don’t believe it. That’s a trick of the devil to manipulate you. If they say that they know the very sin in your life that has caused your children to be sick, don’t fall for that. Those special gifts of knowledge and discernment do not exist today.
If you are a believer, then you have the Holy Spirit living within you. God has promised to speak to you through the Holy Spirit as you read the written word of God, and the Holy Spirit will speak to you as your pastors and teachers preach and teach the written word of God.
Paul mentions apostles and prophets in Ephesians 4 only because, as he wrote that epistle, the word of God was not yet complete. Since we now have God’s completed word, we no longer need apostles and prophets. We no longer need anyone to speak the words of God with the infallible authority of an apostle or a prophet.
When pastors and teachers teach the word of God today, we should do so with the understanding that we are fallible, that we are learning and growing in our understanding of the word. We do not speak with the authority of an apostle or a prophet.
God has determined that for the Church today to grow into a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, all we need is the word of God, the Holy Spirit and people who are gifted as pastors, teachers and/or evangelists.
In the Old Testament, God gave the prophets the ability to do miracles so that the people would know that they spoke with the authority of God. Moses did the signs in the sight of the people, and the people believed. Elijah called down fire from heaven, and the people cried out, “The Lord, He is God.”
When Jesus Christ came to the earth, preaching the New Covenant Kingdom, He did miracles to validate His message. He told the people that He was the very Son of God, and He did miracles to prove that His message was true.
The Apostles went out during the Acts period, preaching the hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. God gave them the power to do miracles so that the people would know that they were true apostles, speaking with the authority of God. They were asking the people to believe that Jesus had come back from the dead and that He had been taken up into heaven. As you can imagine, that message needed some extraordinary proof, so God gave them that proof in the form of miracles, miracles that were done right in front of their eyes.
When Paul was called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, he went out during the Acts period as a minister of the New Covenant. He went out telling people that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins and that He had been raised from the dead to give them eternal life. His message was validated by miracles. As Paul wrote to the Galatians during the Acts period, he said:
Galatians 3:5 (NKJ)
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?--
The miracles that Paul did during the Acts period confirmed the fact that Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Therefore, all of the Apostles were confirmed by miracles, but when Israel’s New Covenant program was rejected by the nation of Israel at the end of the Acts period, God set aside the New Covenant program and with it He set aside the gifts that were related to the miracles.
Today, we live under the program for the Church which is the Body of Christ. No preacher or teacher or evangelist speaks today with the authority of an apostle or a prophet because we already have the completed word of God. God still does mighty miracles, and every day we should expect to see the Lord working in miraculous ways, but we need to recognize that today God does not give the gift of miracles to individual believers.
Thank you for studying with me this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
No comments:
Post a Comment