There is a strange account in the Gospels where a woman comes up to Jesus with a desperate plea because her daughter was dealing with a demon. The problem was that she was a Gentile, and Jews and Gentiles were not to mix or intermingle. But she tried all her sources, and she had heard about Jesus. Like the woman who dealt with hemorrhages for 12 years, she knew He had what it would take to heal her. But Jesus did something very strange with her: He showed her no compassion and insulted her. How? Why? Let’s explore.
At first, Jesus simply ignored her. He didn’t bother responding. He only turned to her when, in total desperation, she persisted, even though the disciples tried to send her away. Then Jesus told this woman straight to her face that He was sent to the children of Israel (the Jews) and that you don’t give the food meant for children to dogs. He called her a dog, which was a street animal, hardly a step above a pig, an unclean animal.
How insulting! How could Jesus, the very man who told a crowd, “He who is without sin cast the first stone” to save a woman caught in adultery, succumb to such racism and total disdain? He ignored her and then insulted her with a “You don’t have a right to what I offer” statement. How many of us would respond to that? I know what we would do. We’d just dismiss Jesus as being rude, inconsiderate, “un-Christlike,” and walk away. But why would we do that? The answer is because we are too self-centered and not desperate enough. We have seen the films where a coach will utterly rip into a player, not be nice at all, and totally diss him, but those insults awaken a drive to finally do what the coach knew he was capable of doing. And then the coach says, “Now we’re talking.” Jesus was doing something similar here.
Jesus was not deliberately ignoring her. He knew who she was and why she was there. He was testing her to see how desperate she was. Jesus taught the concept of “importunity,” unyielding and unrelenting pursuit of what we need, particularly through prayer. He wanted her to come after Him and not quit. Her situation left her no other choice. Jesus was the last option, and her daughter would die with that demon if He did not do something.
Then Jesus insulted her, calling her a dog and saying she was not worthy of eating at the children’s table. How did she respond? With humility, she used the same analogy to admit, “Yes, I am a dog, and yes, I am not worthy, but can something trickle down to me?” She knew she didn’t deserve anything, but she loved her child and wanted to see her well.
Jesus was amazed at her faith, knowing her place, knowing His place, and even knowing His mission. He tested her, and she passed the test. But Jesus also could have been testing His disciples to see if they cared. At first, they didn’t, so what He told her was what they were thinking. This Gentile woman was asking for that which belonged to the Jews? What is up with that? Yet she persisted, and Jesus, out of the genuine compassion He had all along, granted her request. And like the Centurion’s servant, this woman’s daughter was healed by a spoken word.
At times, Jesus will remain silent to our prayers. Now, there are times where God will flat out not answer them because we have been sinning, because we have selfish desires, we’re asking amiss, or a variety of reasons, but there are other times where we ask true, genuine prayers and God does not answer for a while. Are we going to give up after the first silence? After the second? The third? The tenth? Most do. They don’t know how to persist. And if God tells us, “You aren’t worthy of this,” most will think that’s a lie from the devil. But in this case, it came from Jesus. Are we going to feel insulted because we think we are worthy of God answering us? Or are we going to realize we don’t deserve anything from God and that we are not even worthy to be called children, and even being called a dog is still higher than we deserve? At least dogs get to dwell with the master. This woman knew her place and pleaded like a dog begging for something from the master, and the master gave it to her. How much more will God give to those whom He has adopted as children! Let us learn how to persist in our prayers and how to keep praying until we have what we need, but we need to be Kingdom-focused first before we do that.
Another challenge is, will we be content if God actually says “no”? We need to remember that the daughter was not dealing with a chronic illness, but a demon. It is different to be physically paralyzed versus dealing with a demon. Jesus never healed every physically disabled person, but He did deal with the demonic. And sometimes He does not give the answer we want, either to test our faith, or to test the faith of those around us. Let us take our requests before God, but let us also be content with the answer God gives. In this case, Jesus did not say “no.” So until God says “no,” and if your request has been tested to be in alignment with God’s will, go for it until the answer is given.
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There is one miracle Jesus did that is recorded in all four Gospels: the feeding of the 5000. I will focus on John’s account here. Each biographer emphasized some details over others, but they all emphasized one thing: a massive crowd of 5000+ men, not including women and children, which likely would have made the crowd upwards of 20,000. Jesus taught them, had compassion on them, and fed them. But then John’s account takes it further. The crowd followed Jesus for a large discourse afterward, and Jesus didn’t give them another bite. He instead told them to stop seeking physical food that would make them hungry again but to seek Him for eternal bread, which the manna of the wilderness was a picture of. As a result, the whole crowd quit following Him, and that ended Jesus’ ministry in the upper parts of Galilee. So what is the deal here, and what was Jesus thinking?
If we know our Biblical history, this crowd was already prepared for Jesus because this was the same region where Jesus healed the demoniac who lived among the tombs and then told him to go tell everyone what Jesus did for him. So when Jesus showed up again, word spread very quickly in the whole region, and this massive crowd gathered around Him. Jesus saw all these people, who were like lost sheep with no shepherd, and He longed that they might be saved. After teaching them, it became clear that there was no food, and it was now becoming a distraction from the teachings. So Jesus, in His compassion, fed them. He only had enough to feed a couple of people at best, but it was enough. Jesus multiplied the food that was enough for maybe two people and fed 20,000 people with plenty of leftovers: twelve baskets full, which would have lasted each disciple a good week or more.
I personally have seen a similar miracle take place on more than one occasion, having grown up on the mission field. It’s always awesome to see. One time in March 2010 stands out the most because I recognized it happening while it was happening. We were at a children’s home on the far outskirts of Juarez, Mexico, and we brought a sloppy joe meal for them: 40 people, including kids, staff, and our team. We had the meat mix for 40, 40 buns, 40 apples, canned corn for 40, 40 plates, 40 napkins, 40 forks, and our standard team “snack box.” We didn’t know that during lunchtime, the community around them came by also, especially noticing that Americans were there. We ended up with double the number of people that we had food for. We chose to feed the people full servings, and our team would sacrifice, just eating from our snack box if necessary. But we just kept serving and serving, and I noticed that more people had gone through the lines than we had food for, and we were like, “God’s doing His thing again.” We were about 10+ miles from the nearest store where we could get any food, not to mention that you can’t just buy our sloppy joe mix, as we had it in our pots. No one left to get more. But in the end, we served over 75 people, served them seconds, and had leftovers.
There were other times when the last bite went to the last person. Back when I was too young and unobservant, my mom described this miracle happening with eyeglasses – every person got their exact prescription down to the last box. So yes, these miracles still happen, and no, we know better than to put God to the test. It only happened when we planned properly, and the crowds were still way above what we could expect. God did not let them go hungry.
Jesus filled that crowd till they were full and then dismissed them. However, the crowd noticed this was going on, too, and they chased Jesus so they could get another meal out of Him. But Jesus put His foot down. He didn’t give them another bite. Jesus was not going to be anyone’s welfare system, a genie that makes food appear at convenience. He did have compassion on them, but He was not going to give anyone a free ride. This miraculous feeding had a much bigger purpose: it’s not what Jesus has to offer that sustains us; it is Jesus Himself that sustains us.
Let’s not forget the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus knows our physical needs. He did not at all dismiss them, but He had a priority: to seek the Lord and to see His Kingdom first and foremost. When we do that, all “these things” – food, water, clothing, shelter – will be provided. They may not be in the form we like, but they will be provided. This is what Jesus was seeking to do with this crowd. He didn’t want them dependent upon Him for handouts. He wanted them dependent upon Him for literally everything. To walk as He walked. To talk as He talked. To love as He loved. To hate as He hated. To think as He thought. And to be obedient to the Father as He was obedient. He wanted these people to make Him the very source and sustenance for every aspect of life. And that was too much for them, so they left.
Then Jesus did a strange thing: He turned to His disciples and asked them if they wanted to go, too. Jesus wasn’t looking for fans. He wasn’t looking for popularity. He was only looking for those who would be dedicated through thick and thin. Jesus took solace in the fact that those who would follow Him would be those the Father selected. And while it grieved Him that so many would perish, He did not let His emotions control Him. He let the Father’s will control Him. So must we in our lives.
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There is an account in the Gospels where Jesus is pressed with urgency to heal someone on the verge of death only to be interrupted by a desperate woman who knew Jesus could heal when all else could fail. I am talking about the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman who had been dealing with bleeding hemorrhages for 12 years.
Jesus never needed to actually go see Jairus’ daughter because all He had to do was speak the word and it would be done. However, Jairus didn’t think about that. He just knew his daughter was sick, dying, and Jesus could heal her. So Jesus went, but there was urgency and the crowd realized Jesus was in the area. Everyone else was looking for their miracle as well, and Jesus and His disciples had to push through a desperate and pressing crowd, each trying to get their hands on Jesus. We don’t know how big this crowd was, but even a hundred will seem like a lot very quickly when they are pushing to get their moment with Jesus.
In the middle of this, a woman who had been dealing with bleeding believed she just needed to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, and she would be healed. She knew she would not get any direct time with Jesus with this crowd, especially while He was on an urgent mission. She only needed to touch His garment, and she fought through the crowd and somehow got close enough to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment – just the edge of it, or perhaps the tassels attached. And the moment she gripped it, Jesus stopped. He felt power come out of Him. Someone touched Him with genuine faith. Jesus spoke with her, pointing out she had been healed, and gave her peace.
Then Jesus resumed His urgent mission only to find out the girl didn’t make it. Jairus’ daughter died, and the professional mourners were already present. (They had professional mourners who would come to professionally cry when people would pass away. That’s not true mourning over a loss.) Jesus knew none of the people there would believe Him, and when He said she was merely sleeping, they all laughed. So He cleared them all out, and He took the parents and Peter, James, and John to see the girl before raising her back to life. And all five who were present knew full well the severe consequences of what would happen if news of Jesus raising someone back from the dead got out. So they didn’t speak about it until after Jesus Himself rose from the dead.
Why did Jesus do what He did here? Jesus knew of the urgency of the situation and was moving through the crowd, not heeding them but not rejecting them either. Just getting to an urgent situation. Then He was interrupted. Someone touched Him that drew power out of Him. Again, Jesus knew the situation with Jairus’ daughter was urgent, but the interruption did not bother Him. The woman with the bleeding was not an annoyance to Him. It did not stop Him from His mission; the girl was likely already dead by the time Jairus got to Jesus.
Jesus had compassion on the woman who demonstrated true faith and let her take some of His time. He still had the mission in mind, but He did not operate on a human clock or calendar. Jesus had God’s will in mind as His priority, not the “mission.” And God saw a daughter coming to the throne pleading for mercy. He set aside all things to deal with His daughter. Jesus did what His Father did.
But then at Jairus’ house, Jesus had to clear everyone out and tell them that the girl was asleep, not dead. Was Jesus lying to keep this miracle on the down-low for a while? No. Jesus also had eternity in His mind and said a similar thing about Lazarus as well. To fall asleep was a commonly used euphemism for death, while thinking of the resurrection to come. Paul used that phrase as well when describing some of the 500 witnesses of the resurrection of Christ. But Jesus didn’t want to create a bigger ruckus than He already had by raising the dead. He’d never get a moment’s peace if that happened. This is why Jesus forbade His core three disciples and Jairus from saying anything that the girl was actually dead. This girl would be one of three people Jesus raised from the dead. The other two were the son of the widow from Nain and of course Lazarus.
Can we be interrupted from doing a mission God called us to that also fits in God’s will? I am reminded of Otto Koning, whom I heard from by Eric Ludy in one of his sermons, “Fixing Broken Pots” (the online link is no longer available for this sermon). Koning was a missionary to Ira Jaya/Papua New Guinea, and he had a tall task to learn the language, put it into writing, and then translate the Gospel of John for these tribes. But he has a problem: he had tools, and people would come to him time and time again to fix broken pots, bent shovels, and other things. It really frustrated him, until God finally got through to him that his mission was to serve the people and the translation process would come in due time. When the mission board came, he was scared to death he would be sent home, but it turned out he was ahead of any projection by about ten years. Ludy uses this as a framework for preaching on how we should handle interruptions, describing his life as a pastor while dealing with newly adopted toddlers.
Interruptions are definite inconveniences. Yet the Christian is supposed to be built to not just handle such inconveniences, but they should make us glad in helping people with their inconvenient requests. Yes, that’s a stab in the heart to me too. I’m a hyper-focused type of guy, where once I get on my task and lock in, do not interrupt me. Though as a side note, there was one time no one dared to interrupt Jesus: when He was praying. No one touched that holy ground. That said, Jesus was interrupted by a woman who would not let go of her Savior until she got what she needed, and He loved that she did. May we learn from Jesus in handling interruptions and then going to the task at hand, no matter how it turned during those interruptions.
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Jesus demonstrated some impressive control over things no human had ever done before. Elijah had commanded rain to not fall until he spoke another word, and Moses had called for hail to fall, but in two instances, Jesus demonstrated a control over nature that was above that. There were two specific times that Jesus calmed a storm over the Sea of Galilee. In one instance, Jesus fell asleep on the boat despite the storm. In the second, Jesus came to the disciples in the storm by walking on water. Jesus had much more to say on these matters than merely calming a storm and shocking the disciples to wonder, “Who is this man?” Let’s explore what we can see about Jesus’ intentions in these two instances.
In the first case, Jesus was tired and fell asleep in the boat. This wasn’t a normal ship but more like a rowboat. It was small enough that fishermen could throw out their nets and pull up the nets by hand, rather than by a crane. Those were the typical type of boats that could carry a dozen men or so across the sea. The Sea of Galilee was small enough that a professional swimmer could swim across, and boats were often available for rent to get from one side to another. This storm wasn’t a kind of storm that would sink a full vessel, but these rental boats would certainly be a concern. The storm was severe enough that experienced fishermen did believe they would die unless something happened. And Jesus was sleeping.
How could the man who had turned water to wine, healed lepers, made the lame walk, and confronted the overbearing religious leaders of the day be sleeping when His life was on the line, too? Take notice that the disciples didn’t ask Jesus if He wanted to live. They asked Him if He cared if they lived. Yeah, we would not have been much different. Jesus was tired and He took a nap – in a boat when rain and water were splashing all over the boat, likely soaking Him. How could He sleep through that anyway? Jesus would have been disturbed from sleep like any normal person in His physical body. Finally, He woke up, rebuked the storm, and looked at His disciples with a “Why did you disturb me for that?” kind of a look. Did they not know that as long as Jesus was with them, they were practically invincible to the things of nature or the world? That was Jesus’ mindset. Because He was with them, a silly storm wasn’t going to take Him down. He was on a mission from God, and a storm wasn’t going to get in the way of it.
This reminds me of an account of Hudson Taylor on his way to China, where he would spend the bulk of his life starting China Inland Missions. On the way, the ship got disabled as it was relying on the currents and the winds, and the current path was directing the ship towards an island of cannibals. They were building their fires to get ready for a feast. Taylor spoke up and said, “Have you considered praying?” He knew he was called to China, and that mission was not going to be cut short by a shipwreck on an island of cannibals. He prayed, and the winds turned to send the ship back on proper course.
This is also like Paul’s shipwreck of Acts 27. He knew he was being sent to Rome, and despite the crew refusing to hear his wisdom to not sail and winter early on, they chose to go. A 2+ week storm crash landed them to Malta where they would winter anyway. But Paul was not scared of the storm. He wasn’t even concerned about a viper that bit him. Paul had the same mentality as Jesus. Jesus was on a mission from God and a storm wasn’t going to stop Him. He wanted His disciples to learn the same thing. They didn’t learn it for a while, but as showcased by Paul and many since, many believers have learned it. As long as you are on God’s mission, you will not be touched, no matter what comes your way.
Jesus took control of another weather situation in which He walked on water. When Peter realized it was Jesus, he asked to come join Him on the lake. I can picture Jesus thinking maybe Peter finally got the message from the previous storm, but then Peter started looking at the waves and began to sink. Jesus had to save him and then calmed the storm. But think about how it wasn’t just Jesus walking on water; Peter did, too. And Jesus didn’t congratulate Peter for stepping out; He rebuked him for doubting. Yet, Jesus saw in Peter what no one else would have seen: the leader and anchor that he would become as the voice of the Apostles. Jesus saw that confidence growing in Peter, but He also knew that much of it was driven by the flesh. He gave Peter that chance and, despite knowing Peter would fail, He still showed that those who trusted in Him would be doing wonders beyond human comprehension. It would be Peter who performed the first miracle by the Apostles after Pentecost by healing a cripple, and it would be Peter who specifically requested to be crucified upside down, a more painful death, so that he would not be done in like his Savior.
Jesus controls all our situations and any storm we face. If we are on God’s mission, no storm is going to take us down. If we set our eyes on Jesus, while we may not literally walk on water, we will do wonders that the natural minds of our day could not conceive. Jesus wants us to have such confidence in Him that we could lie beside Him and take a nap in the middle of a storm, knowing God will protect us. (Note, I am NOT saying to be presumptuous by any means, but for when we know we are in the center of God’s will.) He wants us to trust Him to the point of getting out of our safety net and walking on water with Him. And all it takes is for us to not look at our circumstances and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Let Him deal with the storm, and He will silence it. The winds and waves obey Jesus; why would our circumstances be any different?
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Jesus was never someone who needed to prove Himself to anyone, but there were a few times He did things to demonstrate who He was and what He was about. Jesus was not going to merely proclaim some hard truths and hard messages. He was going to prove that He was the one who could call those truths, and He backed them with authority.
There are two miracles that happen back-to-back in the Gospels: the healing of a leper and the healing of a paralytic. In the case of the leper, Jesus touched him (something that a leper would never feel again post-diagnosis: human touch) and healed him but told him not to tell anyone because He did not want the attention. But right after that, Jesus was teaching, and a crowd began to gather. They must have heard about Jesus doing miracles either at the wedding at Cana, seeing Jesus heal the leper, or seeing one of Jesus’ general crowd healings because they brought a friend who was a paralytic. The crowd was too thick to get through, though the crowd here may have only been 50-100 people; when surrounding a small home in those days, that can be a lot very quickly. So they went up to the roof, where there would be an opening, made space to lower the man down, and called upon Jesus to heal him.
During the teaching, some Pharisees were there, and they were wondering who this Jesus was, what teacher He had trained under, and how He got His authority to teach. Jesus saw this moment as an opportunity to prove a point. He was going to prove to the Pharisees that He had far more than the authority to teach, and not just any rabbi’s authority either. So He told the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus was asked to heal this man, and instead, Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Why? Jesus was proving He was much more than a healer and a preacher. He was declaring Himself to be on the same authority and tier as God the Father. The Pharisees knew He was claiming that, and knowing that was what they were thinking, He called them out. To nail it even further, He gave them another task that was impossible for a man to do: to make a lame man walk. So, without any show, without any psychosomatics or emotional hyping, Jesus simply said, “Get up and walk.” And the man was able to do so. Miracles had not been seen in Israel since Elisha passed 800 years earlier, and Jesus did one not because He was asked for mercy but primarily just to prove a point.
Jesus did the same thing with a man with a paralyzed, withered hand, and on the Sabbath day no less. He walked into the synagogue while teaching was going on and quietly whispered to the man about getting healed, and the Pharisees on staff that day got offended that Jesus would dare heal on the Sabbath. So Jesus proved a point that to give mercy on the Sabbath was greater than keeping the Sabbath by their standards. The Sabbath laws never forbade doing necessary jobs and tasks. Feeding animals needed to happen every day, and getting animals out of a ditch was a task of necessity that no one would object to being done. But help a person on a Sabbath? Help an old lady cross the street from church? You must go to Hell for that sin. It’s that pathetic.
Jesus also did it for the blind man in John 9, who soon got excommunicated just for saying Jesus healed and telling the Pharisees didn’t know what they were talking about. He only knew he had been healed, and only God could have done that. Jesus healed him in part to prove that man’s ailments, while a result of the curse of sin, are not necessarily a result of any person’s actions. Some things like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are definitely cases where the person’s mental capacity is permanently damaged by the mother’s drinking. But blindness, lameness, deafness, and many other things are not necessarily because they sinned or because their parents sinned. It can also be allowed so that God could receive glory.
My brother had a dramatic hearing loss in his toddler years and could not hear consonants. A church family prayed over him in secret, and he was miraculously healed. The hearing loss was not a punishment for sin; it was something God allowed, and it was for His glory. The same can be said for a young man in my church who has been wheelchair-bound for his whole life. There was no sin for which that was a judgment. Sin nature in general may be partly to blame, but God allowed it and has allowed it for a reason, which we don’t know fully right now.
Jesus was not a for-show person. He was never going to perform a miracle on a whim unless He was in control of the situation. If the Pharisees were not there at the home for the paralytic, Jesus likely still would have healed him, same with the man with the withered hand and the blind man. Jesus took advantage of each of these situations to prove a point about who He was, what authority He held, and why He came to do what He did. It was never an “I told you so” moment, nor was it a “come look at me” show-off moment. It was to prove that He was the Messiah, but it was also to begin antagonizing the Pharisees so they would be riled up to the point of calling for His death. The Pharisees did not like that because they knew if the Messiah did come, their jobs would no longer be needed. (This reminds me of cancer research groups who don’t want cancer cures being found because that would kill their income instead of going on to the next thing.)
Now let me be clear: Jesus is not anti-religion. He was against the Pharisees’ abuse of the system and their hypocrisy for their own gain. He never once chided the Pharisees over doctrine. But He was going to leave them no room to consider Him as just a street preacher with a Messiah complex. He was going to make sure they knew He knew and believed Himself to be the Messiah, and He proved it by performing miracles that had never been done before.
Jesus proved He had the authority to teach, the authority to heal, and the authority to forgive sins. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at how that authority was showcased as we look at Jesus’ most well-known sermon and the understanding of authority and faith that left Jesus astonished. And that’s just the beginning of Jesus’ ministry; there’s much more to discuss as the series progresses.
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When Jesus opened His ministry, He purposed not to draw a crowd by preaching some difficult messages and even driving His own hometown away and refused to use them for building His ministry. To further demonstrate He was not about crowd-drawing, Jesus began doing His miracles quietly, seeking no honor for Himself.
When Jesus was just getting started, He was preaching in Capernaum right after being rejected in Nazareth. He was doing what He had been doing before starting His miracles, and a demon spoke up. This demoniac had been in the congregation for some time, and no one seemed to notice, but then Jesus began to preach in power and authority, and the demon could not hide any longer. This demon then proclaimed Jesus to be the Holy One and was afraid that it would be sent to Hell early. Jesus immediately silenced him and drove the demon out. He would not let the demon give His position and identity away, even though what the demon said was true. Jesus had no interest at all in being promoted by a demon.
The first formal miracle of Jesus happened at a wedding. Jesus was invited and brought the disciples He had with Him (not all twelve may have been picked yet). The wedding planners made a very humiliating mistake. They either underestimated numbers or came out short on the wine because partway through the party, they ran out. Mary summoned Jesus to do something, and Jesus initially refused. But out of compassion for her and for the married couple, He summoned the servants to get water, which He turned into wine.
Another time, while out with His disciples, Jesus was approached by a leper. This man with leprosy must have heard about Jesus either through the wedding or something else, and he knew that Jesus could make him well. And Jesus had compassion on him and did what no man had ever done since he got his diagnosis: Jesus touched him. Unlike any other person, Jesus wasn’t made dirty and unclean by touching this man. Instead, the man was made well, and his leprosy was instantly healed. In that time and culture, to celebrate something, you went and told everyone about what you did or what happened. Jesus denied this man from telling anyone, but he should get his official report of cleansing so he could return to society without telling anyone. Jesus would take no glory for this.
This is in total contrast to the “miracles” we see from the “Word of Faith” movement, where they proclaim miracles take place constantly and on a regular basis. None of these “miracle workers” can do much of anything unless a camera or crowd is present. While they give lip service to God doing the miracles, all the attention is on them. This is ALSO an issue in some Reformed circles. There are preachers who are solid preachers and do so with authority, but they have a crowd’s attention, and they long for that attention. This is a problem everywhere. There are very few out there who truly handle their platform and ministry as Jesus did, seeking to deflect human attention. I know there are solid preachers who do not like the spotlight and have had it thrust on them regardless. The idolatry of men is a deadly trap when you have the gifts for a large platform, and it takes the utmost care and caution to survive it.
As an author and occasional speaker, there is an appeal to wanting a crowd because I want the truth to get out to as many people as possible. Jesus definitely felt that, but He also knew that the bulk of the crowds would only come for the show and for what they could get out of it. Jesus repeatedly had to repel crowds who only wanted a show. I, too, want people to hear the truth I put in my writings and my talks, but I am scared of a crowd because I know my issues with pride, being intellectually wired. It would be easy for me to use a popular name as a platform for me, and that is not how I am to operate. I am glad God did not give me a skill, let alone much of a desire, for marketing because if I had that, I’d fall into the trap of people-pleasing. With the messages that I bring, people-pleasing is the fastest way to lose the message and make oneself inept in service to the Lord.
Jesus didn’t want attention, so He showed only the minimal people needed to get started, but there were times Jesus did a miracle just to prove a point. Every single move Jesus made was strategically calculated, spiritually, to bring all things together to get both the people and the religious leaders to come and kill Him. By not being people-pleasing, He would not even attempt to fulfill misconceptions and false hopes based on a false understanding of Scripture. He would soon let people speak about Him, but He did not want popularity until it was necessary. The leper did not obey and told many people how he got healed; to avoid undesired public attention, Jesus kept to the smaller towns.
But soon, word would get out and around and Jesus, in His compassion, would heal people and word would spread even more. This would get the attention of the Pharisees. Over the next two weeks, we will look at two of Jesus’ earliest dealings with the religious leaders: one who saw something in Jesus he could not explain and others who challenged His authority to teach. Through these interactions, Jesus would prove His authority to teach, to heal, and to forgive sins.
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When I was in college, I wore a T-Shirt that said, “Pray for Juarez” put together by the ministry my parents worked for at the time. This was 10 years ago and Juarez, Mexico was in the middle of a fierce drug cartel war, making it the deadliest city in the world at the time. It was not uncommon to be in Mexico and see a dead body or even a head on a city fountain (yes, that kind of graphic violence). One of my college advisors saw the shirt and said “Did you know that scientific evidence says that when people are sick and pray for healing, there is only about a 50% success rate? Therefore, prayer doesn’t work.” I didn’t answer because I didn’t feel that was the place for the debate, but I brushed it off, knowing this guy knew nothing of prayer and so did his source.
But what’s the deal with this? This is part of the “Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees?” issue. The claim was, “If Jesus said you can pray for anything in His name and He’ll give it to us, why doesn’t He answer prayers or do miracles?” I want to make this clear. One of the reasons why many people reject the Bible is due to “unanswered prayers.” They have certain expectations, and when the expectations aren’t met, God is to blame. But is the fault with God for not answering a prayer? Is the fault with the person for not asking the right kind of prayer? Is there not enough faith? What’s the deal?
As I’ve studied prayer and tried to practice it, one thing is for certain: prayer is NOT a process. It is not a formula. God is not a “rub the lamp and get three wishes” genie. Prayer is man reaching out to a personal but sovereign God. It is man calling out to God to do what man cannot do. While Scripture does indeed say, “Ask and you shall receive,” there is fine print that goes with it. These aren’t hidden contract fees, but you must interpret what is said in one verse in context with all other verses that talk about the same issue.
One thing must be made clear: God is only responsible for answering the prayers that He said He would answer. Just asking for a few things and attaching “Jesus’ name” to the end of it and saying “Amen” is not true prayer. To ask in the name of Jesus means to ask as though Jesus Himself is asking. That means we need to have the mind of Christ and pray what He wants to be praying. While we do have the authority in Christ to ask whatever we need and God will grant it, that authority only works if we are submitted under the authority of Christ. The Centurion understood this. He knew Jesus didn’t operate under His own power or agenda. He also knew that Jesus could delegate the power and it would be done. If we want free access to the throne of Grace, we have to do thing God’s way and go after the things God wants.
God’s typical answers prayers are yes, no, or later. Not many people like the “no” or “later” answers, but we have to remember that God is a Person and He is sovereign. That means that God has His will and His Kingdom as the chief agenda. God does indeed love us and seek the best for us, but we are not the center of the universe. We are not what it is all about; God is. We have to keep that in mind. God does not need us, nor did He create us to fill a missing hole. He created us to showcase His glory and His character. That includes His love and mercy, and that includes His justice and His wrath.
Now don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that God is indifferent about us. I’m not saying that God doesn’t actually care about our desires and our feelings. But I am saying that God’s primary focus is what will give Him glory. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He brought a 14-year old boy back to life after drowning and being formally declared dead for over an hour. But He let a former Muslim and Christian apologist, Nabeel Qureshi, die of cancer. Why? Prayers were offered for both. Does one being saved and one dying mean that God is arbitrary? No. It means God has reasons for letting somethings happen and intervening in another that we don’t see. The boy, John Smith, who died was brought back is not proud or boasting of the gift God gave him. He’s asking: “Why me?” And that’s the attitude anyone of us should have when God acts on our behalf. “Why me?” We don’t deserve it. The only thing we deserve is the wrath of Almighty God.
When God moves, it’s always for a purpose. Miracles are called rare for a reason. If God answered the prayers of every person who wanted a healing or a restored limb, several things would happen. People would get complacent and reckless. They’d start doing stupid things because after all, who cares about safety if only we believe God will fix the problem? There is natural law and consequences for our actions for a reason. Part of it is to teach us not to do stupid things. Be sexually promiscuous, you will likely catch an STD. Drive drunk, you’ll likely crash and kill someone, if not yourself. Tell a lie to your boss, you may get fired. If God were to fix every problem we created, would we ever learn from them?
Another issue is that the miracle would become commonplace and God’s glory would be minimized. I do believe God does miracles still today (though I am against the notion of “miracle workers” where God always does them through the ministry of a specific person), however those are rare what could be called “mercy drops.” The miracles God does are set up so only He can get the glory. God is capable of working through natural means, and often He will orchestrate the natural to do what He wants done. But He also works in the supernatural where He intervenes upon the natural world to do something it won’t do normally.
People say there’s no objective evidence for miracles. I always ask: “What’s your criteria? What are you expecting?” I rarely, if ever, get a straight answer. I’ve been miraculously healed. I’ve seen food multiply. I’ve even been present (though I was too young to recognize it then) when eyeglasses for a giveaway were multiplied and the last pair of donated glasses went to the last person, each with their precise prescription. But I’ve also seen doors shut, the sick remain sick, the lame remain lame, the damaged brain remain damaged though it was no fault of that person. The fact remains that we live in a sinful, fallen, cursed world and the source of that curse is not God. It’s us.
But what about those who need a miracle? The parent whose child is battling cancer, or a defective heart (as a family in my church is dealing with a second child with the same issue, the first died a few years ago before age 6), or those in a serious financial bind (through no fault of their own)? How should they pray? They should pray knowing two things: God is the God of the universe and He loves His children. He loves to give good gifts. He does hear the pleading and desperate heart. But He is also sovereign, and He has a bigger plan than we can imagine. To the parent with a suffering child, God loves your child even more than you do. He knows what is going on, but He also knows what needs to happen for His glory, or what would happen if He intervenes as we request. Make your plea and keep asking for your plea until the answer comes. David did, but God didn’t answer his prayer to save his son. Yet the Syro-Phonecian woman persisted and God did answer her. Pray until you received closure to your request, but accept the answer when it comes, even if it is a no.
Next week, I’ll examine a crucial Christian doctrine that is sadly ignored or even vilified in many churches today: the doctrine of suffering.
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Earlier this year, I had someone approach me on Facebook with all sorts of doubt about the existence of God and especially about miracles. This person said he was raised in the church, but he revealed that it was a “Word of Faith” church that emphasized “miraculous healing.” He observed that what he saw was fake and became disillusioned. However, instead of going to Scripture to test what he was seeing, he dismissed God and religion all together. One of the sources he gave me to showcase his claims was one called “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?”.
I knew immediately that there would be all sorts of problems with this page and the book it is based on, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we as Christians need to be able to give an answer to this question. I did not read through the whole website because it turns out it’s basically just this author’s book. But in the parts I did read, I could see where it was going.
The opening described a school shooting and how a teacher prayed for safety only to be shot and killed. His conclusion? That God didn’t answer her prayers because He doesn’t exist. The premise of the whole thing is: Prayer is just an emotional feel good blanket; because science has shown that prayer can’t work and miracles don’t happen because there’s no evidence for them, therefore God doesn’t exist. In another section, the author goes through over twenty explanations that Christians have given to why God doesn’t answer every possible prayer out there and he attempts to dismiss each one. The whole notion is foolishness and horribly devoid of logic in my opinion. It showcases a lack of understanding of prayer, a lack of understanding of God’s sovereignty, and a lack of understanding of who God really is. It says God is a liar because He promised that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name, it will be given to us… but anything major like restoring a limb or something obviously miraculous is not in the realm of possibilities.
In this post, I am going to the real heart of the issue. The REAL issue is not: “Prove to me that God exists through authentic miracles like restoring a missing limb.” The REAL question being asked here is: “Why would a good God allow people to suffer and not fix them when they ask for help?” When the cliché goes, “God, it’s no wonder you have so few friends considering how you treat the ones you have,” we need to be able to give a reasonable answer for this.
Joni Eareckson Tada was 17 years old when she dove into a pond that was too shallow and broke her neck, paralyzing her. She has spent the rest of her life as a quadriplegic, yet she is an outspoken artist with her mouth and a public speaker. I’m sure she had many people praying for her to be healed that she could live a “normal” life. But I have never heard her complaining about the injury, and instead she has praised God for the life she has had.
Nick Vujicic is an Australian man who was born with no limbs except for a small stumpy foot. He went through a lot of problems growing up, both physically and emotionally. But he has a wife and at least one child last I heard, is a public speaker, can swim without limbs, and like Tada, he refuses to play victim to the circumstances he was given. Why doesn’t God do a miracle and give him limbs? Why didn’t God heal Tada? Is it because God is inept or because He doesn’t exist, or is there much more to the picture?
I have a nephew and niece whom were adopted, and they suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. It’s permanent brain damage. Could God heal them? Sure. Will He? I don’t know if He will in this lifetime or not.
A skeptic may say that I’m trying to just give God excuses, but the skeptic is not exactly being honest in his evaluation either. God is a sovereign God. That means more than just God is in control of things. It also means that everything that He allows to take place or cause to happen is for His goals and His purposes. I’m going to make this very clear: God does not exist for us. He is not out there to make us happy or to fulfill our wishes and dreams. God created us for HIS purposes. He let Bartimaeus be born blind for the purpose of showcasing Jesus’ authority as the Son of Man. God’s ways our not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He sees the whole picture and we don’t. Who are we to judge Him?
Voddie Baucham has another answer to this and it’s very powerful. The author of this “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?” site suggests that because God doesn’t do the miracles he wants to see in the timing or manner he would prefer to see them, then God must not exist. That’s terrible logic. Baucham turns it around and I’ll use his tactic. This author is asking the question wrong. To ask it properly, he needs to ask it this way: “How could a holy, righteous, loving God, look at what I did, said, and thought upon yesterday and not kill me in my sleep?” If we are concerned about God not restoring a limb or making the truly lame walk today, should we not be even more concerned about how God is letting us live AT ALL? What right do we have to live? I’m serious about that. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all committed treachery against the Creator in defiance of His will. There’s only one thing any of us deserve and that’s death. We deserve the wrath of Almighty God. Who are we to accuse God of not letting our lives be just fluffy and rosy and giving us everything our sinful, selfish hearts desire? Where is the flaw? Is it in God or is in us? If you want to indict God on anything, you best make sure your life is completely perfect. Good luck with that.
The issue of why God doesn’t heal amputees is only one specific example of what skeptics are using to deny God His place of authority. I’m going to explore this issue a little further over the next couple of weeks, but not in great detail. I’ll address how praying for a miracle should look like as well as what the Doctrine of Suffering entails.
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I have enjoyed this study on miracles, and I hope you have too. If I were to rank the three greatest miracles of all time, they would be these three: Creation, the resurrection of Christ, and the born again Christian. The Creation is something I’ve talked about many times. God, using only His spoken voice, created the entire universe and everything within it out of nothing. Nothing existed prior to Him and nothing that was made exists apart from Him. But the other two miracles are closely related so I will focus on them.
While we don’t have a specific date for the resurrection, most scholars believe it to be around 30 A.D. This means in just over ten years, we might be able to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the resurrection. This was no ordinary event, even for miracles’ standards. In all the miracles I have addressed so far, they were intercessions upon the natural order of things. They were completely impossible by natural, physical laws by themselves, but they did not change how the natural, physical laws operated. In the previous miracles where someone was raised from the dead, that person eventually died again. The resurrection of Jesus was vastly different.
The only time in history that the world’s entire mode of operation was changed prior to this was at the Garden of Eden when God cursed the ground for Adam’s sin. Sin was a foreign entity to the universe, as was death until man brought it in. With the curse came death, decay, disease, thorns, weeds, and the overall descent into chaos. Things break down and it always takes more energy to put something to use than it produces. There is no such thing as a 100% efficient machine in this sin-cursed world. Yet, the resurrection changed the nature of the world.
When Jesus rose, He acquired His glorified physical body. It’s a body that does not operate as it did in the sin-cursed world that could be hurt and age. His body is everlasting. It is a new entity. It will not wear down, get old, nor have to fight disease or sickness. It will live forever. But this was no mere exception to the general rule. This is a promise made to every believer. We have not received our glorified bodies yet, but we have something else which is a “down-payment,” a guarantee that we shall receive them: the Holy Spirit.
The Christian is also something that is brand new. Prior to Christ, a “Christian” did not exist. A Christian is not merely someone who is a believer and follower of Christ, but a born again creature. A new entity. The Christian is someone who is born, not with a nature of sin with an inclination to rebel against God and do as we ought, but someone who is born of God, with a longing and desiring to please and honor Him. But there is more to this.
The Christian does not operate by the “laws of man.” I am not merely talking about the society we live in but by the very means of how we think, operate, and act. A man of this world thinks about his physical needs: food, shelter, water, resources, and even his family and country. But a Christian thinks about something entirely different: the Kingdom of God. The Christian, operating as a Christian should, does think about physical needs but only in context of a greater purpose.
The Christian also has something that no one ever had before: the equipment and ability to overcome sin and temptation. This is completely impossible without the Holy Spirit in action, however the Christian is not subject the law of sin and death, not just legally but naturally. Satan no longer has dominion over the Christian, and neither does death. Hell has no victory and death has no sting. With Christ and the resurrection, along with born again Christians, the universe now operates on a new set of laws.
Christians know that death with come, but death does not scare them because they know what is on the other side of it. The Christian is the only one who receives persecution and trouble and grows from it. No other group ever actually grows when governments try to crack down on them. The Christian does not operate by the natural laws that the rest of mankind does. We are in this world, which means our bodies are still subject to the physical laws, however we are not to be of this world, which means we are not to operate as the others do. We are to be unique and separate. The Christian’s very existence is a miracle.
How did God make this happen? Jesus’ physical body was comprised of atoms and cells that were under the curse of sin. He aged. He could bleed. He could (and did) die. The food He ate was under the curse as was the very air He breathed. Yet He was without sin. Some may argue that Jesus cheated because of this, however due to this sin-cursed body, Jesus had temptations which in many cases were strong. It was Jesus’ spirit and mind that had no curse, so He could think and act purely with God’s heart and mind. But Jesus’ glorified body was not made of sin-cursed atoms and cells but of an entirely different substance that no science of ours can comprehend.
Yet when the Christian is born again, it is an even bigger miracle. While God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, and while Jesus who was without sin rose from the dead, God took sin-cursed man and made him new in spiritual birth. This too only happens through death, which is part of why we physically will still die. However, when we become attached to Christ, and position ourselves in Him, then His death becomes our death and His resurrection becomes our resurrection. It is the greatest miracle. God took a sinful, selfish, God-hating Charlie Wolcott and turned me into something I cannot describe accurately: someone who knows God, seeks Him, seeks His truth, and longs for His name to be glorified. I’m far from a finished product and the miracle God started in me is not finished, but when He is done, I will be a sight to see, as will every born again believer. As the bride is a sight to see as she walks down the aisle for the wedding, so will we as we approach our Groom, Jesus Christ.
The greatest miracle was not overcoming a physical law God established, but taking sinful man and making him new all the while maintaining His integrity and His righteous standards. I cannot give this miracle its proper due, but every one of us should simply sit back and glory in our Savior giving Him the praise and honor and worship He deserves. I pray this series gave you a new perspective on God and that you might worship Him has you have not worshiped before. He is the Miracle Maker and all so that we might know Him. Let us know Him deeper and deeper.
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God has mastery over inanimate objects – tools, weapons, and even celestial objects. When I started this series, I addressed how when God does miracles, He intercedes upon the natural order He established. God did set up a natural order for which things would happen by the laws of science that we have only recently discovered and were able to articulate. Gravity, forces, momentum, chemical reactions, biological activity, etc. were all established by God and do what He has told them to do.
There are two major events in the Bible outside of Creation itself in which God controlled solar objects. The most well know is Joshua’s long day. Joshua was in a battle, claiming the Promised Land for his people, and he knew that when the sun set it would turn the tide, so he commanded the sun to stand still. And the sun did not move from its spot for about a 24-hour period. Some people claim this is an argument for a flat earth or a geocentric model, but this was ultimately a statement about perspective, not a scientific model of the solar system. We still talk about the sunrise and sunset daily in weather reports and the phrase “the sun went behind a cloud” is still used, when in actuality, it was a cloud that moved in front of the sun. But what we can say is the Bible records the sun not moving from a human, “on earth” perspective for about a day.
The other incident was when King Hezekiah faced an illness. He immediately sought the Lord, and Isaiah came to reveal that God would extend his life 15 years. It seems that Hezekiah had doubts that God indeed meant that so the kings was asked which sign would validate the word. Hezekiah asked for the sun’s shadow to go backwards ten steps. He was asking for a reversal of the flow of time, and God gave it to him. Now whether the sun’s position in the sky actually went back ten steps or whether God simply shifted the shadow is not explicitly said, but we know that this was a completely impossible thing to happen in the natural. Hezekiah knew this, which is why he made that request. To push it ten steps forward would have been too easy.
A big argument that creationists have to deal with is the fabled “Starlight Distance Problem.” The argument is this: these stars are so many billion light years away, how can we see them if the universe is only 6000 years old? This argument assumes pure naturalism as the explanation, however, God has mastery over this physical universe including stars and the light they emit. We know this for certain: the stars were made on Day 4 and man, when he was created on Day 6, could see them. The mechanism is not explicitly given. But that said, the scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what light is, let alone how it really works. I’m certain the more we learn, the more we’ll find out that the actual description of the physical universe will only reveal the Bible was right all along.
God does these miracles for more than just celestial objects. Elisha made an ax head float. We all know the laws of buoyancy, and metal doesn’t float. Yet here, a man had borrowed an ax head, which was not cheap, and he likely would have to sell something major, possibly himself as a slave, to pay it back. So, Elisha caused the ax head to float so it could be retrieved. I can easily see God reaching down, picking it up, and simply supporting it on top of the water. This is not a violation of physics, but an intercession through the natural realm. God didn’t change the law of gravity or of liquid pressures to do this miracle. He simply picked it up the same way we would.
I mentioned earlier in this series about a pastor/missionary friend of mine who planted several churches in Juarez, Mexico. A gang of three men entered and attempted to shoot him, but the gun never went off, until he left the church and some in the congregation pursued them.
God controls many other objects as well. One pastor was in a near panic because he was bi-vocational and he lost his secondary job and the benefits that went with it. For three years he didn’t have a secondary job and God finally told him: “Did you notice throughout those three years, you never had a major appliance break down, a major car repair, or any medial issues?” God preserved this pastor’s resources so he would get through without the second job.
Sometimes God will kill an engine or make it so you can’t find keys readily to delay you on the road so you are not in the wrong place at the wrong time and get killed in a wreck. Sometimes, he’ll provide you a “bubble” while driving so you don’t have to face traffic while merging. I have seen that happen with my mom, who doesn’t like driving in the city. God will take the inanimate objects and position them to do what He needs done and ultimately so we will recognize He did it and give Him glory.
God is the master of this universe. He created it and can do with it whatever He pleases. While I would suggest God encourages us to seek out His mind as we study His creation, let us never get to a point where we want to become “academics” and/or “theologians” for that purpose and in the process lose the awe and wonder and worship of our Creator.
Next week, I will conclude this series with one final post on the greatest miracles of all: the resurrection and the Christian.
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As I continue my series on miracles, our next topic is that God has mastery over his entire creation. This also includes the biological life forms He created including animals and plants. Throughout Biblical history, God used both animals and plants to prove He was indeed God to His people.
Twice, Jesus had Peter puts his nets down in a time a place when no fish should be caught and yet he had the biggest catches of his career. In the first instance, Peter was just being called to become a disciple and in the second, Jesus had just risen and Peter would be reinstated as a disciple. Peter was an expert fisherman. He knew when the fish were around and how to go after them. He did everything he knew to do to find the fish and caught nothing. Then Jesus comes around and tells him to drop the nets one more time and Peter, knowing that Jesus did not know a thing about fishing professionally, still believed Him and caught his greatest catches.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt, the Gospels made a point to address that it had never been ridden. Colts are young donkeys and this one had never been tamed. It is nearly impossible to ride an untamed donkey, yet this one carried Jesus without objection. He had mastery over animals.
In the Old Testament, God showed mastery over animals as well. He prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and carry him back to Nineveh. Exactly what kind of fish, we don’t know. Some have suggested a sperm whale, but we cannot say for sure.
He brought the animals that would be spared from the Flood to Noah. Noah didn’t have to go get them; God brought them to him. For surviving the Flood on the Ark, it’s likely a number of them went into hibernation or a low energy state. Many animals take shelter during storms, and when major disasters are about to take place the animals often flee their natural habitats or retreat to them. God may have put them into a subdued state to survive the Flood.
He gave one animal, a donkey, the power of speech. Balaam was supposed to be a priest of God, someone who knew God and spoke what His standards were to be. Yet, Balak king of Moab was able to buy him out. Balaam still refused to actually curse Israel, but the lure of money was too strong, so instead of directly speaking a curse on Israel, he told Balak how to get Israel to curse itself by getting them to sin against God. In one of the trips to Balak, the Angel of the Lord blocked Balaam’s path, yet only the donkey could see Him. After receiving multiple beatings, the donkey spoke and that is when Balaam saw the Angel of the Lord.
In another instance, a gang of hoodlums mocked and jeered the prophet Elisha shortly after Elijah was taken up to heaven. These 42 youths (who were not little kids) didn’t merely mock Elisha for being bald but were actually telling him to go up to heaven with his master and leave them alone. Elisha merely cursed them, and two bears came out of the woods and mauled them to death.
God controls the animals. In my personal life, I have not seen an incident where I knew that God directed an animal to act in an unusual way for a purpose. I’ve heard some stories across the internet, like an ant carrying a contact lens because a rock climber had lost it on a mountain and couldn’t see without it. I have no idea of the validity of that story, but I’ve heard similar stories. I know of one incident where a couple of missionaries in the jungles of South America were captured by guerilla soldiers and on a Sunday, a group of birds came in and sang for the duration of the church service they were supposed to be in. What I do know though is that the animals, while left to their instincts, will obey God upon command.
Plants are the same. While classified as biological life, they do not have the breath of life as animals have. God has mastery over them too. When I wrote about how God has mastery over time, I talked about Day 3 of Creation. The plants grew to maturity in one day. That was a creative, miraculous act that does not follow the normal patterns of life and growth we measure today.
Jesus cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit when he expected it to. All he did was speed up the inevitable curse of death that was already upon it. God also made a tree grown for Jonah, then withered it away in a day. Jonah was complaining about the heat while watching for Nineveh to perish, then he complained about the tree dying. God had to deal with him on that issue.
God is the one who controls and has mastery over crops and our food supply. He used Joseph to foretell to Pharaoh about a seven-year famine which would follow seven years of bounty. He blessed the crops of those who were obedient, but often put a curse on them when sin abounded.
God has mastery over the animals and plants. After Adam sinned, God cursed the ground so plants would produce thorns and thistles. Ever notice how with the tiniest bit of rain, weeds grow exponentially but your desired garden battles to produce anything? We can thank sin for that. After the Flood, God put the fear of man in the animals, because He gave us permission to eat them. But the day will come when that will be undone. Predation will cease, crops will produce what they used to produce, and there will never be a shortage. I look forward to the day when animal and plant life is restored not merely to their original function but to an even better form.
Next week, I’ll look at how God has mastery over inanimate objects before wrapping up this series about the one greatest miracle of all time: the Resurrection of Christ.
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This post is going to be a unique one in my series on miracles because most of the miracles we talk about showcase God having mastery over the physical creation. However, this topic is unique because there isn’t anything physical about spiritual forces. God has rule and mastery over the angelic hosts of heaven and the demonic forces of hell. Angels and demons are created beings; however, they exist on a spiritual dimension rather than the physical dimensions we operate in. Yet, they also can interact in the physical realm.
The angelic hosts are often described as stars due to their brightness, their glory, and their power. They are not creatures to be trifled with. Ezekiel 1 describes the Throne of God on some kind of chariot with wheels full of eyes. The passage also describes some of the seraphim which have six wings and four faces: one each of a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. If that confuses you, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. These are powerful creatures which in their own power could readily rule or destroy the entire world. Yet, they submit to every word and command God gives.
When Jesus was arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane, good old foot-in-mouth Peter drew a sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus rebukes him and told Peter He had 12 legions of angels at His command and if He chose, He could call them to rescue Him. A legion is about 6,000 soldiers, so we are talking about 72,000 angels if not more. Jesus has command of them all.
Elisha had a view of the hosts of heaven as well. When he kept telling the king of Israel where the Syrians were moving, the king of Syria got frustrated to the point where he sent his army to hunt down one man, Elisha, so he could go about his war with Israel. Elisha’s servant woke up to see the army surrounding the village and Elisha didn’t even blink an eye. He instead asked God to open the eyes of his servant and when that happened, the servant saw the chariots of heaven surrounding the Syrians. They were rescued.
But not all the spiritual beings are good. Scripture indicates that when Satan fell, he took 1/3 of the angels with him. That’s some impressive skills of deception. Those angels had seen God and knew of His glory, His goodness, and His power, yet they sided with Lucifer in his rebellion. Demons have been going after man since creation, yet it is critical to note that none of them can force any person to do anything. The serpent didn’t hold Eve down and make her eat the fruit; he simply told her a simple lie and let her make the choice for herself.
Yet when people start following and listening to the advice demons offer, slowly but surely their own will erodes away. There is a legitimate thing called “demon possession,” when a demon takes control of a person’s body. But such possession only takes place with permission from said person. I used to watch some “haunting” shows a number of years ago, and one thing I noticed through all the possession stories and hauntings, there had to be some sort of invitation for them to be there. And to rebuke said invitation, it takes an authority higher than the one that set it up, or that authority had to be broken.
Jesus understood the authority issues regarding demons. He drove one out of a boy who was thought to be an epileptic in modern terms. Whether that was truly a medical condition for this case or the demon gave him symptoms of epilepsy is irrelevant. What is clear is that Scripture identifies the seizures as being from a demonic source. The disciples could not drive it out and yet at one word, Jesus did. Jesus had command over even the demons.
Earlier when Jesus met a demoniac, who could not be chained and lived among the tombs, the demons knew who He was and Jesus cast them out. They went into a flock of pigs and drove them into the lake to drown. Jesus had command over them. The demons had to ask permission to stick around.
There are two Old Testament accounts of how well God has control over the spiritual forces. In one instance, God summoned the angelic hosts to have one of them incite King Ahab to go to war where he could be killed. A lying spirit said he would tell Ahab’s false prophets about the success he would have, and God said that would work. So here we see God will employ even the demons to do the work He wants do.
In the other account, God and Satan had a squabble over Job. In fact, it was God who brought Job to Satan’s attention. Yet, God would not let Satan touch certain things. At first it was Job’s person: Satan could steal his wealth, houses, and family, but not his body. Then Satan could take his health, but not his life. Job passed the test, which lasted for only about a week, by not sinning with his lips against God. Everything that was stolen was restored above and beyond what he originally had.
I, too, have dealt with demonic forces. In one instance, I was wrapping up my short career at a local grocery store, witnessing to a co-worker, and in the process I stirred up a demonic stronghold in his life. That story usually takes me about an hour to tell in proper detail, but long story short, I could sense that God restrained it from physically attacking me. It very well could have and I was not interested in being another of Sceva’s seven sons. Yet, God also did not allow me to drive it out either. I don’t know why. I can only suppose that part of the issue was my co-worker did not want it out.
In another instance a couple years after this, I told that story to some friends during a retreat and that very night, I heard some animal growls near my room. At first, I thought it was someone snoring, but it was distinctly animal-like. After a few minutes, I realized what it was so I cast it out in the name of Jesus and it went dead silent. When I told my friends about that night in the morning, they reported hearing the same sounds at the same time. We were in different buildings.
God is ruler over the spiritual forces. We need not fear the demonic hosts of hell, though we should not take them lightly either. Everything is under the command of the Lord including both angels and demons. Next week, I look into how God has mastery over biological life: plants and animals.
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Last week I wrote about how God has mastery over physical health. This week I will take it a step further and showcase how God has mastery over life itself. There is a terrible statistic that ten out of every ten people die. (I stole that from Ray Comfort.) There is nothing any of us can do about it. Man has strived and fought the aging and dying process from the beginning. Just watch TV for five minutes and you will find commercials about extending your beauty and retaining a younger look. Man is constantly striving to extend his life and is terrified of death.
But why? Why is man constantly striving to postpone death? If death is and always was part of the natural world, why is man scared of it? Evolution teaches by implication that death is a benefit to life because as each generation passes, life evolves into better forms. But the Bible teaches that death is a foreign agent brought in by man when he sinned against God. Man was not meant to die but to live in continual communion with God. But sin is a corrupting, corrosive agent and it only produces death. Yet, that death is actually a mercy from God, because if man were to live forever in a sinful state, separated from God and in perpetual decay, it is the nightmare that spawns ideas of zombies: a state of perpetual death and yet no relief from it.
God has control over life and death. He is the one who breathed life into Adam, making him a living soul. He gives life and He takes it away. No man lives without permission from God and no man can die without it either. We do not understand why God takes a life and lets another live. I have addressed this issue several times within this series, but we are not in a position to judge God on why He lets some live and some die. We don’t have the full knowledge of God to know what would happen if someone who died had lived, nor do we have full knowledge of why God spares someone we think should have died. He struck down Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit, yet He let King Manasseh reign for 55 years after turning to idolatry and murdering his son on the altar to Molech.
But there are also times where a sickness or something takes a life and God is not done with that person yet. The Bible has numerous accounts where a person died and was raised again. Elijah raised the son of the widow he stayed with during the 3½ year drought he proclaimed. Elisha would replicate this miracle twice, once with another family’s son, and then later by a man who was dropped onto Elisha’s bones.
Jesus raised two people from the dead during his earthly ministry. The first was Jairus’ daughter, and the second was one of his most famous miracles: Lazarus. What makes Lazarus’ tale so interesting is that Jesus waited long enough that Lazarus’ body would have been part way into the decaying process. So, this wasn’t a case that could be argued that the person could have been declared legally dead but wasn’t actually dead. Lazarus was all dead, and Jesus raised him back to life. The greatest account of raising from the dead is Jesus himself with his resurrection, however that is such a special case I am going to devote an entire post to that one thing.
God did not stop this miracle when the New Testament was completed. One of the deacons at my church lost his son to drowning. Yet after he was pronounced dead, God raised him back to life. These miracles don’t happen in great quantities and I cannot explain how or why. It is well beyond any kind of scientific study, but it also cannot be denied.
God also preserves life. Last week, I wrote briefly how I was sick and dying as a child with no hope of recourse, yet God spared my life. My case wasn’t as dramatic as some others. The Apostle John, according to tradition, was captured by the Romans and thrown into a pot of boiling oil but came out unscathed. The real reason John was exiled to Patmos was because they could not figure out how to kill him. Rees Howells was on a mission in Africa when the plague hit. God asked him if he would pray and declare that no one would die on his property. Howells struggled against the fear of being presumptuous but eventually did so and no one died on his property while everywhere else they did. That is what got the people to finally receive the Gospel there.
In another incident, a friend of mine was preaching in Juarez, Mexico when three gang members entered. The leader pointed the gun at my friend while the other two robbed the congregation. My friend pointed his finger at the gunman to where the hand and gun overlapped and proclaimed, “There’s power in the blood!” The robber pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. He checked the gun and did it again – five times. The robbers fled while the church thought the gun was fake, so they took chase. Outside the church, the gun worked just fine but the robbers encountered police. In another incident, also in Juarez, Mexico, a worship team was attacked by a gang. The son of the leader stood up and took 38 bullets before going down saying, “God forgives you,” the whole time. They would have wiped out the entire group but ran out of bullets. God spared one person and He let another die, but He preserved him long enough to let the others live.
We don’t know why God raises some, preserves others, and takes others still. It is appointed once for every man to die, and after that the judgment. We do not know when our time is going to be up. Each of us could die in an instant. Driving down the road, one could die and another could be spared. A wildfire could wipe out an entire neighborhood but spare one home. God has mastery over life and death, and Jesus made this ultimate statement: do not fear men who can only kill the body, but fear God who can kill both body and soul. When we know God is in control, we have absolutely nothing to fear from this world. Why? Because as long as we are obedient, God will preserve and protect us for as long as He needs us in action. If He lets us fall into enemy hands, it will be not merely for our benefit, but also for His glory. He allowed Richard Wurmbrand fall into Communist hands and Corrie Ten Boom to fall into Nazi hands so that through their imprisonment and torture, they would learn God’s mercy and grace and love personally and as a testimony to the rest of the world.
God has mastery over life and death. Do not fear death. Those who are born again know that physical death will only carry us into God’s presence and out of this curse of sin. Next week, I’ll examine how God has mastery over spiritual forces.
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Jesus performed more miracles of physical healing more than any other type of miracle He did. While there are numerous cases throughout the Old Testament, this was a particular detail that would pertain to the Messiah. When Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth, He read from the scroll of Isaiah in how the lame would walk, the deaf would hear and the captives will be set free. He then said that this prophecy was fulfilled in their hearing of it. I only have time and space to give a snapshot of the healing miracles Jesus did, so I’ll address them by the types of physical ailments He healed.
A woman had a bleeding problem, in which for 12 years she sought all the doctors she could find only to have no solution. She heard of Jesus and was so desperate she knew she just needed to touch the hem of His garment and she’d be healed. And she was.
A man laid crippled, since birth, by the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus simply asked if he wanted to be made well and at a command, the cripple got up, took up his mat, and walked.
A man born blind begged at a street corner and Jesus healed him. Jesus was the first person recorded in Scripture to heal blind eyes. To the Jews, this was no ordinary miracle.
In one instance, Jesus healed ten lepers. He sent them to the priest to be washed, yet only one of the ten returned to thank Jesus for healing them.
This is just a snapshot. In several places, Jesus only healed a single person when a crowd sought healing (like at the Pool of Bethesda). But there were many other instances where Jesus healed the whole crowd. In some cases, Jesus healed out of compassion. There are other cases where Jesus did not heal because of unbelief. At a cursory glance, there seemed to be no formal standard for when Jesus healed many or when He healed only a few, however we do know that Jesus only healed when He sensed the power of God to do it and when He had permission to heal.
Healings took place outside the Gospel writings too. One of the most famous accounts was when Elisha healed the Syrian general, Naaman, from leprosy, requiring of him to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. The apostle Peter healed a cripple at the Beautiful Gate near the Temple. Paul was bit by a viper and suffered no effects. God demonstrated repeatedly that He has mastery over physical health.
Healing miracles didn’t stop in the New Testament. I have personally seen numerous cases of physical healings, and one of them was me. When I was four months old, I was dying and doctors had no clue why. All they could say was to pray, and my parents and my church prayed. My life was spared, and to this day no one really knows what happened.
My brother suffered a massive hearing loss as a child. He could not hear consonants, and when we’d run the vacuum cleaner, he’d put his hands on it to feel the vibrations. My parents received a doctor’s report on it after church (our family physicians were also church elders) and a family in my church overheard it and spent the afternoon fasting and praying. The next day, my mom got out the vacuum cleaner and my brother ran out of the house screaming because the noise was too intense for him. He had been healed. He was four years old at the time.
I was at a retreat about ten years ago up in the mountains in Colorado. A girl at the retreat was in absolute agony due to walking up and down the hills with a bad knee. She was in prep for her seventh knee surgery later that summer. Some friends prayed for her the last night of the retreat, and she started weeping and jumping for joy. Her knee was healed. God still heals today.
But God doesn’t heal everyone. In the last few years, my church has lost a few people to a sickness we believe God would heal, but it didn’t come in this life. One was five-year-old girl who had a heart problem. She was on a transplant list and she did get a new heart, however the old heart had done too much damage and this illness took her life. Just a couple months ago, a woman, whom I’ve spoken about a few times on this blog, passed away after her third battle with cancer. She had it beat emotionally and spiritually, but it took its toll on her body and she passed away in victory.
My pastor described an incident a number of years ago when he was the worship leader at a revival meeting in the panhandle of Texas. The speaker had a healing ministry (not the kind that you see on TV which are fake), and God was healing people through him left and right. But there was an older man who had stage 4 cancer waiting at the end. He came forward to be healed and everyone in the crowd knew what this man was dealing with and they were expecting a “grand finale.” The minister held the man’s hands and simply stood there for about five minutes. In the end, he said something like, “God is with you. Go in peace.” The man wasn’t healed. My pastor understood precisely what was happening. The minister was not there to do a show nor to get attention. He sought the will of God on each person and God was making a statement that He wasn’t doing stuff for a show. Jesus refused to perform miracles at the whim or will of the people. That is what was happening here.
God does not choose to heal or not to heal on any arbitrary basis. It may seem like that to us, but God has the entire picture in mind. He knows the beginning from the end, and He knows the “would be” scenarios. He never takes a life out of spite. When it’s time, He says it’s time. Sometimes it’s out of mercy. Sometimes it’s out of judgment. Sometimes it’s little more than, “You’ve done all you can do for Me here on earth. Why not just come home to Me?” We don’t know, but God does.
The skeptics will ask us if we trust God over medicine. They always cite the cases of people who turn to prayer instead of a doctor. Many of these cases are being presumptuous of God rather than seeking God out; those are not viable counter-examples. God gave us medicine, but wouldn’t it be best to seek the advice of the Master Physician before going to choose a pill to take care of our ailments? God may often tell us to go see a doctor. The woman who passed away from her third battle with cancer did and every time she was at the hospital, both the nurses and the other patients in her ward got to hear and witness the life of Christ flowing through her. But in other cases, God may tell us to go to the doctors so He could showcase that He knows more than they do.
Seek the Master Physician first. He’ll tell you want He wants you to do, and should He heal, He will do so. Should He not, let us be at peace that He is still in control. When I was diagnosed with degenerative myopia in my eyes, I was at serious risk of going blind, especially if I took a blow to the head. My parents and those around me panicked. I didn’t. I knew that if God needed me to be blind, He’d let it happen so He could use me. It didn’t happen and my eyes stabilized, but God is still in control. Trust Him. He knows what He’s doing. And for those who have been born again, we await the day when we will receive a new body that is finally free from the corruption of sin and death. That will be a glorious day.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
