Be Careful, Miracles Can Distract
By: Dr. Danny Purvis
Last week we talked a bit about how, as Believers, we do not need God to do miracles in order for us to believe. Only the revelation given us by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word alone can lead us to the point of belief. I made the point that if we depended on miracles to believe, then what happens if God does not perform one for me? In the grand scheme of all humanity…from Adam and Eve until now…the number of people who have never personally experienced a physical miracle wrought by God waaaaaaay outnumbers the people who have. They are exceedingly rare…hence the term miracle. If they were common, we’d call them something else.
I have maintained for years that Jesus was a reluctant miracle worker. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that He was reluctant in the sense that He did not really want to help some people. I mean reluctant because he knew these miracles alone would not, in and of themselves, draw people to Him for salvation. God points this out to us in the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel. This very long (71 verses) chapter begins with the feeding of the 5,000. This is one of Jesus’ most amazing miracles and the only one specifically mentioned in all four Gospels. It is how the chapter ends, however, that supports my assertions about miracles. The chapter ends with many of His disciples leaving and never following Him again (John 6:66). They did so because Jesus engaged in teaching that they could not understand and that frankly sounded pretty weird to them. They didn’t get it…they didn’t like it. So, they left (John 6:48-66).
Now, these folks designated as disciples were not the 12, but they were described as disciples and were people following Jesus for a time. These were probably some of the same 72 folks Jesus sent out on a mission as recorded in Luke 10:1-23. Anyway, the point is that these disciples were not true disciples…or they would not have given up following Jesus. But they were followers. If they were not true disciples, then why were they following Jesus in the first place? Well, Jesus tells us. “Because you ate of the loaves and were filled”, is what Jesus said motivated them to follow Him (John 6:26). Jesus healed 10 lepers and nine of them never even thanked Him (Luke 17:11-19). Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and days later people were screaming for Him to be crucified. Jesus knew miracles would not save. They could not save. He knew they were not an end…but a means to an end. And they can distract us.
Do me a favor. Go back through the Gospels. All of them. Find the moments where Jesus did a miracle. Then, instead of being enamored with the physical miracle, look at what Jesus says during that particular event. We tend to refer to those moments with words related to the miracle. Which is fine…there is certainly nothing wrong with that. But because we are so focused on the miracle, we often miss the point of the miracle. What is Jesus really saying here as opposed to what He is actually doing? It’s amazing how much we miss by being distracted with the miracle.
There is probably no better example of this than is found in the 2nd chapter of Mark. Do me another favor. Get your Bible and turn to that chapter. I’ll wait……….are you there…….good. If your Bible has a subheading for that particular chapter (as mine does) my guess is that it says something like: Jesus Heals The Paralytic. I gotta tell you. If you have a subheading like that…it misses the point of the event. It’s not wrong. Jesus does, in fact, heal a paralytic. That is a factual depiction of the physical miracle Jesus performs. But that is NOT what this event is about. It is only part of what it is about. How do we know? Jesus tells us. You know the story, right? It is one of Jesus’ most dramatic miracles. This man’s friends think Jesus can heal him of his infirmity. They are so sure, that despite the crowd they actually crawled on the roof, tore open a hole, and lowered the infirmed man onto the floor in front of Jesus (Mark 2:1-4). The paralytic knew why they had done that. His friends knew why they had done that. Everyone standing around listening to Jesus teach (Mark 2:2) knew why they had done that. They wanted Jesus to do a miracle and heal the man.
And when Jesus saw their faith…and saw the man lying there needing desperately to be healed from his paralysis…what were His first words to the man? “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). This is amazing. I can imagine what the man’s friends must have been thinking upon hearing that. After all of the work and effort they did to get the man in front of Jesus…that’s what He says? I would have been thinking: Hey, maybe You could have just yelled that out the door and kept us from lugging this guy up on the roof. Jesus did not address the man’s infirmity. He addressed his more dire situation…He addressed his lostness. Now, He did heal the man physically (Mark 2:10-12). But He did so to illustrate the more important healing…the man’s very soul. The point of this event was not to make the man physically better…it was to forgive his sin. Therein lies the point. Let’s go back to the subheading we mentioned earlier. In every Bible I have ever seen, the subheading is something along the line of ‘Jesus heals the paralytic’. I have never seen it listed as: Jesus forgives a paralytic’s sin. That is the more accurate description of the event. The physical healing (while amazing and grace-filled) was ancillary to the true reason for this event…the miracle of God forgiving someone’s sin. If Jesus had only healed the man physically without forgiving his sin, the man would still be just as lost as he was when he was confined to that mat. His temporal life would have been more comfortable while his eternal life would still be relegated to an eternity of suffering apart from Christ. In fact, if Jesus had forgiven his sin without physically healing the man, he would have been far better off (by a long shot) than if Jesus had healed him physically and left his sin unatoned for.
See what I mean? We are happy for that man that Jesus healed him. We should be rejoicing in rapturous applause that he had been saved for all eternity. Miracles are great. They are wondrous to hear about and see. But Jesus did not come to earth specifically to do miracles (Mark 1:32-38; Luke 19:10; John 10:17-18). Everyone loves a miracle. But don’t let the miracles distract you from seeing what Christ really wants us to see. His Gospel.
-Dr. Danny Purvis
Last week we talked a bit about how, as Believers, we do not need God to do miracles in order for us to believe. Only the revelation given us by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word alone can lead us to the point of belief. I made the point that if we depended on miracles to believe, then what happens if God does not perform one for me? In the grand scheme of all humanity…from Adam and Eve until now…the number of people who have never personally experienced a physical miracle wrought by God waaaaaaay outnumbers the people who have. They are exceedingly rare…hence the term miracle. If they were common, we’d call them something else.
I have maintained for years that Jesus was a reluctant miracle worker. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that He was reluctant in the sense that He did not really want to help some people. I mean reluctant because he knew these miracles alone would not, in and of themselves, draw people to Him for salvation. God points this out to us in the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel. This very long (71 verses) chapter begins with the feeding of the 5,000. This is one of Jesus’ most amazing miracles and the only one specifically mentioned in all four Gospels. It is how the chapter ends, however, that supports my assertions about miracles. The chapter ends with many of His disciples leaving and never following Him again (John 6:66). They did so because Jesus engaged in teaching that they could not understand and that frankly sounded pretty weird to them. They didn’t get it…they didn’t like it. So, they left (John 6:48-66).
Now, these folks designated as disciples were not the 12, but they were described as disciples and were people following Jesus for a time. These were probably some of the same 72 folks Jesus sent out on a mission as recorded in Luke 10:1-23. Anyway, the point is that these disciples were not true disciples…or they would not have given up following Jesus. But they were followers. If they were not true disciples, then why were they following Jesus in the first place? Well, Jesus tells us. “Because you ate of the loaves and were filled”, is what Jesus said motivated them to follow Him (John 6:26). Jesus healed 10 lepers and nine of them never even thanked Him (Luke 17:11-19). Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and days later people were screaming for Him to be crucified. Jesus knew miracles would not save. They could not save. He knew they were not an end…but a means to an end. And they can distract us.
Do me a favor. Go back through the Gospels. All of them. Find the moments where Jesus did a miracle. Then, instead of being enamored with the physical miracle, look at what Jesus says during that particular event. We tend to refer to those moments with words related to the miracle. Which is fine…there is certainly nothing wrong with that. But because we are so focused on the miracle, we often miss the point of the miracle. What is Jesus really saying here as opposed to what He is actually doing? It’s amazing how much we miss by being distracted with the miracle.
There is probably no better example of this than is found in the 2nd chapter of Mark. Do me another favor. Get your Bible and turn to that chapter. I’ll wait……….are you there…….good. If your Bible has a subheading for that particular chapter (as mine does) my guess is that it says something like: Jesus Heals The Paralytic. I gotta tell you. If you have a subheading like that…it misses the point of the event. It’s not wrong. Jesus does, in fact, heal a paralytic. That is a factual depiction of the physical miracle Jesus performs. But that is NOT what this event is about. It is only part of what it is about. How do we know? Jesus tells us. You know the story, right? It is one of Jesus’ most dramatic miracles. This man’s friends think Jesus can heal him of his infirmity. They are so sure, that despite the crowd they actually crawled on the roof, tore open a hole, and lowered the infirmed man onto the floor in front of Jesus (Mark 2:1-4). The paralytic knew why they had done that. His friends knew why they had done that. Everyone standing around listening to Jesus teach (Mark 2:2) knew why they had done that. They wanted Jesus to do a miracle and heal the man.
And when Jesus saw their faith…and saw the man lying there needing desperately to be healed from his paralysis…what were His first words to the man? “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). This is amazing. I can imagine what the man’s friends must have been thinking upon hearing that. After all of the work and effort they did to get the man in front of Jesus…that’s what He says? I would have been thinking: Hey, maybe You could have just yelled that out the door and kept us from lugging this guy up on the roof. Jesus did not address the man’s infirmity. He addressed his more dire situation…He addressed his lostness. Now, He did heal the man physically (Mark 2:10-12). But He did so to illustrate the more important healing…the man’s very soul. The point of this event was not to make the man physically better…it was to forgive his sin. Therein lies the point. Let’s go back to the subheading we mentioned earlier. In every Bible I have ever seen, the subheading is something along the line of ‘Jesus heals the paralytic’. I have never seen it listed as: Jesus forgives a paralytic’s sin. That is the more accurate description of the event. The physical healing (while amazing and grace-filled) was ancillary to the true reason for this event…the miracle of God forgiving someone’s sin. If Jesus had only healed the man physically without forgiving his sin, the man would still be just as lost as he was when he was confined to that mat. His temporal life would have been more comfortable while his eternal life would still be relegated to an eternity of suffering apart from Christ. In fact, if Jesus had forgiven his sin without physically healing the man, he would have been far better off (by a long shot) than if Jesus had healed him physically and left his sin unatoned for.
See what I mean? We are happy for that man that Jesus healed him. We should be rejoicing in rapturous applause that he had been saved for all eternity. Miracles are great. They are wondrous to hear about and see. But Jesus did not come to earth specifically to do miracles (Mark 1:32-38; Luke 19:10; John 10:17-18). Everyone loves a miracle. But don’t let the miracles distract you from seeing what Christ really wants us to see. His Gospel.
-Dr. Danny Purvis
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1 Comment
Excellent message Danny.