Miracles

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Luke 4:33-34 Once when he (Jesus) was in the synagogue, a man possessed by a demon -- an evil spirit -- cried out, shouting, "Go away! Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us! I know who you are -- the Holy One of God!" But Jesus reprimanded him "Be quiet! Come out of the man," he ordered. At that, the demon threw the man to the floor as the crowd watched; then it came out of him without hurting him further.
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Isaac Newton (1643-1727) formed his laws of motion and promoted the idea that what goes on in the world is simply a matter of cause and effect, with everything following very strict rules. This was part of the background for the rise of deism, a philosophical worldview that involved belief in a personal God who created the universe, but later withdrew, leaving it to run automatically like a great clockwork contraption, without him ever interfering again. This meant that miracles were impossible because God was thought never to intervene.

The biblical definition of a miracle would be something like this: “an event that involves the direct and powerful action of God, transcending the ordinary laws of nature and defying common expectations of behavior.” Miracles are extraordinary occurrences that can only be attributed to the supernatural work of God and demonstrate His involvement in human history. God employs miracles in the Bible to reveal Himself, His character, and His purposes to humans through phenomena that are not otherwise explainable. Our world has not been left to run like a clockwork contraption, as Newton thought. On the contrary, God is intimately involved in the smallest and the biggest elements of life.

God is not in the business of doing the miraculous simply to amaze and astound people. Jesus refused to perform miracles to satisfy people’s curiosity. Instead, miracles confirm the authority of those sent by God and testify to the truth of the revelation they bring.

If we claim to be Christians then we cannot deny the miraculous; nor should we wish to. In accepting the existence of a personal creator God who wishes to reveal himself to us, we should affirm that miracles are a natural and logical way to do this. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is excellent and arguably the greatest miracle of all!

We live in a period of time where suffering is all too "normal". Nevertheless, we do hear stories of how God does use his power to perform, according to his sovereign will, miracles for his people. If we could collect all the authentic stories all over the world — from all the missionaries and all the saints in all the countries of the world, all the cultures of the world — if we could collect all the millions of encounters between Christians and demons and Christians and sickness and all the so-called coincidences of the world, we would be stunned. We would think we were living in a world of miracles, which we are.