Miracles

1. Miracles without truth are meaningless. They are deceptive.

2. Miracles often manifest divine power. They were so used in the past to accredit Moses as God’s messenger. (Satan was in the court that day too, and he performed miracles through the Egyptian priests)

3. God never performs miracles to relieve suffering or pain. His miracles do alleviate suffering but if He does it for you, why not for thousands of others.

4. God performed miracles in the past for one reason: accreditation. He performed miracles so that people would recognise “this prophet is from God”. Elijah performed seven miracles; Elisha performed fourteen because he asked for a double portion. Why did God permit Elijah to perform miracles? So that people would listen to his message. It isn’t the miracle, it is the message. Miracles do not form an inventory of ideas in your soul. It is doctrine, it is the message that performs the inventory of ideas. Our Lord, on one occasion, even delegated the seventy disciples, gave them the power of miracles and said to them that if the people would not hear their message (they will see the miracle) that they were to pick up their sandal, fill it full of dust, shake it out and leave town. Why? Because they wouldn’t hear the message. They would sit around all day and see the miracles. It is the message that is important.

5. The purpose of these miracles in the past and miracles in the Tribulation was so that a message could be given, to give Bible doctrine a hearing, and to keep believers functioning in the plan of God. God assumes that once you have it in writing, the Word of God, you are ready for the fact that instead of miracles God intends for you to use your volition today, tomorrow, the next day, the next day, because the whole purpose of life and the secret to life is what you have in your soul: truth. We start out minus truth in the frontal lobes of the soul and the purpose it to get that truth.

6. Satan performs miracles to distract people; our Lord performed miracles to attract people to the doctrine. Satan performs miracles to distract people from doctrine and to hinder the believer from executing the plan of God. In other words, Satan performs miracles to evangelise for the cosmic system. He doesn’t perform them directly, he performs them through cosmic evangelists, believers and unbelievers in the cosmic system.

7. Hence, it is not the miracle performed but the content of the message that accompanies the miracle. If the message is Bible doctrine the miracle is genuine but if the message promotes false doctrine or evangelisation for the cosmic system the miracle is a distraction from Satan.