Does God Still Do Miracles?

(0:00 - 0:33) Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast, with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey, what's with miracles, the message, the gospel, and signs and wonders? Is it one or the other? Listen, stay tuned. We're going to dive into this real quick. Grab your Bibles, take some notes. Let's check it out. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to Jackhibbs.com/podcast. (0:33 - 1:18) Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Listen, we're going to be talking about some things real quick together that I think it's just appropriate. And I have to tell you that it's something that, in my opinion, is either one way over-emphasized, or the pendulum swings to the other side, and it's under-discussed or underestimated. (1:19 - 2:55) I'm reading out of Mark chapter 16, and in verse 12, the Bible says, After that, Jesus appeared in another form to two of them, that is two disciples, as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them. I believe this is a parallel to Luke chapter 24, the famous road to Emmaus. Somebody may have a different opinion on it. It's okay. It's a peripheral thing. Verse 14, Luke chapter 16, verse 14, Later he appeared to the eleven, as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen from the dead. And he said to them, listen, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and he who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, and they will take up serpents. And if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands upon the sick, and they will recover. (2:56 - 3:18) So then, after the Lord had spoken these words to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, wow, and continuing in the word through the accompanying signs. Amen. (3:19 - 4:19) So, a few things to point out. Signs and or miracles, the commissioning to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, and the calling of his disciples or apostles or believers to truly believe. He rebuked them for not believing. So, let's talk about this real quick. I understand that there are those out there who say there's no miracles being done anymore. And they'll say things like, well, we have the Bible, the Bible is the complete revelation of God, and so there's no more miracles anymore. Okay, I don't know how they come to that conclusion. The Bible says in the book of Romans that the gifts and the callings of God are given without, what's the word, erogability? I can't even think of the word. He will not revoke them, that's the word. (4:20 - 5:02) He will not revoke those. Having said that, notice that the end times promise from the birth of the church to the end of the age will be miracles, will accompany the preaching of the gospel. And so, you might be saying, Jack, do you believe that? I believe that 100%. I believe that right here in the Bible. And what are we doing today? We are preaching the gospel to all people all around the world. That's what we're doing. And so, the fact is, somebody might say, well, why aren't we seeing miracles? Wait a minute. We are seeing miracles. We see miracles. (5:03 - 6:01) We're in ministry, we see miracles. Listen, sometimes God heals people miraculously. We've seen it happen. Sometimes God intervenes immediately. We've seen it happen. So, it's not like he's not doing miracles. He's doing miracles. But you see, in the West, we would say, well, we have a hard time, you know, believing because we don't see many miracles. In the West, we have an overabundance of having the Bible, the Word of God. Notice that the Bible here says that the signs and wonders, right, are there to confirm the Word of God. So, the Word of God is preached to those who are in the world. And should you invite them in the world? Hey, follow miracles. The gospel's a side note. The doctrines of the Bible, reading of the Bible, don't get too caught up in it. Don't get too serious about that. (6:02 - 9:00) But go ape crazy about pursuing miracles, signs and wonders. You go for it. Don't do that. Number one, the Word of God trumps all signs and wonders. It's the signs and wonders that when it's preached to an unbelieving culture, shows the power of the Word of God. Jesus even said, listen, the miracles that I've done, they should tell you, they should communicate to you that I've come from the Father. The Father did not send the Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to do miracles. He sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to die for our sins and to be resurrected. And that's the gospel we preach. But when you go to the Orient, or where you go to areas of the world where there is no gospel light, where the Word of God is either illegal or it's suppressed, you'll hear tremendous reports of miracles. For example, there are more miracles that we're hearing about coming predominantly out of the Muslim world right now. There are many, many, listen, don't fall for the propaganda trash. The world's not getting converted to Islam. Muslims are getting converted to Christ. And Islam is panicking about that right now. That's why they're making such a ruckus and trying to project themselves as being so dominant. It's not the case. The truth of the matter is, friends, listen, does God do miracles? Yes. Is he doing them still? Yes. Then why don't I see any? Why should you? Why? You want God to give you miracles, signs of miracles, to what, entertain you? Is that what you want? Is it because, well, I'm not going to believe until I see signs. Guess what you're not going to see? You're not going to see signs. If that's your motive, to pull the puppet string on God and have him perform for you, it ain't going to happen. So good luck to you. But here's the deal. When you decide to take the gospel into places where there is no gospel, they don't, the people are in ignorance. They're in darkness. The light has not yet shined upon them. When you come and you preach the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then you lay hands on the sick and pray for them, don't be surprised if God heals them. Most likely in such settings, he often does move in a miraculous way. But do know this, he will not always do it just like Jesus didn't always do it in the gospels. In fact, one of the gospels tells us that when Jesus was in the region of Galilee, the scripture tells us that he couldn't do many miracles in that village, in that town, due to the people's unbelief. They wouldn't believe the message. Listen to me, please. (9:00 - 10:09) They wouldn't believe the message of the gospel, and thus Christ did no or very few miracles there. Interesting. So don't become those in the last days that are pursuing signs and wonders. I promise you this, if you are, you will be deceived by the deception that's coming. The Bible warns us, Jesus warns us in all four gospels, Paul the apostle warns us in all of his epistles, so does Peter, so does John in first and second and third John, so does the book of Jude. They all warn us that in the last days, there's going to be increasing deception that comes to capture the minds and the imaginations of people through signs and wonders. And those signs and wonders, by the way, will come from false teachers and false prophets. So, how are you going to know what's true and what's false? A very, very illustrious, extravagant, deep knowledge of the Bible. How is that achieved? By not going to seminary, that's for sure. (10:10 - 10:58) You don't have to go to some Bible university, that's for sure. God made it available to you and I, and that is read your Bible. Read your Bible. Read your Bible more than anything else you do. How much music do you listen to in a day? Read your Bible equal to or more. Think about it. How much food do you eat in a day, time-wise? Then eat the Bible equal to or greater than that time frame. You do that, the scripture makes it clear, if these things abide in you, you will not fail. And so, this is important. I believe in the God of all miracles. He still does them. But I happen to live in a part of the world where it's so entertained because where I live, sitting right here where I'm at, I can be at Disneyland in 20 minutes right now. (10:59 - 11:18) But I've got to drive past Knott's Berry Farm to get to Disneyland. That's another amusement park. Oh, before I get even there, I've got to drive by, drive past, oh, there are a bunch of guys that are riding horses with, you know, knights and shining armor. (11:20 - 11:34) Medieval times. Oh, if I don't want to do that stuff, the closest thing to me is Angel Stadium or the Angels. Actually, what's even closer than Angel Stadium is where the Ducks play hockey. (11:35 - 12:33) You kind of see what I'm saying right here? We've got entertainment here in Southern California coming out of our nose. And we've adopted somewhat of an attitude where we go to church, or we think about God, or we want to talk about God, and we really want to be entertained more than anything. Hey, God, can you compete with Mickey Mouse? Hey, God, can you compete against the LA Rams or the Los Angeles Chargers or the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Los Angeles Angels? Can you compete against Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, medieval times? You see what I'm saying? It's crazy. So now we've got a culture of, hey, Jesus, what can you do for me? But don't be surprised at this. Didn't the very unbelievers in Jesus's day say to him, show us a miracle and then we'll believe? Didn't they? That's the corruption of the human heart. Friends, listen. (12:34 - 14:27) If you can be swayed by a miracle to think about Christ, you can also be swayed by a false miracle to denounce Christ or to walk away from Christ. It's the Word of God that is the foundation. In fact, how about this? Does the miracle that was performed glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and his mission, the gospel? If the miracle does not exalt Jesus as Lord and Savior, Christ the King, then it's not biblically honoring and it's a false miracle. Oh yes, there's false miracles. When Moses encountered Pharaoh's court, what happened? Moses encountered magicians and high priests of paganism and they were able to cause their walking staffs, wood, sticks, to be turned into snakes. And God told Moses, hold out your staff. So Moses holds it out and sets it down and it became a snake and God's miracle ate up all the false miracles. Isn't that great? I love it. What's the point? Miracles come and go, but the message is what matters. So I want you to consider this reality. Here in Mark chapter 16, the issue is not the miracles. The issue is the message. It's the miracles done in the name of Jesus Christ that exalts the gospel, that makes the message believable to those who live in a dark land. And so it works together. How about this? It's the miracle that is a slave to the message. (14:28 - 15:15) The message is always prominent. And you and I live in a world today that we have a lot of people guilty of following signs and wonders and they'll fudge on the doctrines of the Bible. Don't do that to yourself. You'll really wind up getting eventually shipwrecked of faith and it can very, very much injure you. So I want to make it clear, you guys, that what God does in the scriptures, he doesn't come to some moment in time where he cannot do it anymore. So if he gives gifts and if he commissions his believers to do miracles, and the Bible says that some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given are gifts of healing, as one example, that's a miracle. (15:17 - 17:45) And the Bible tells us that we should pray, all of us as believers should pray for the sick, anoint them with oil, pray for them. Then we are commanded to do that. And we should do that believing that God heals because he does. And if he doesn't choose to heal in that moment, isn't it remarkable that the Bible says that Jesus spoke to the group or Jesus prayed for this individual or that individual? And the Bible says in that same hour, they were made whole. I find that fascinating because some people were healed instantly when Jesus showed up. And then some people were healed in the same hour. It wasn't immediate. It happened in the same hour. Why did that happen? I don't know. I don't know. I'd have no explanation for that. Just that the Bible said it happened. What if like me in my life, what if somebody said to me, I mean, they didn't say it to me. I was in a room, a big, it was a big room. And it was 1982, I believe it was 1982. It was called an afterglow at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. We're all waiting upon the Lord. Some people are praying out loud. Most people are just waiting, listening, praying silently. And as the Spirit of God, Holy Spirit began to move upon the gathering, there were people who, for example, would speak in a tongue. And then the guy that was overseeing that would say that was just a tongue uttered. And so we're now going to wait for the interpretation. If God gave that tongue, according to the Bible in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and chapter 14, God's going to give the interpretation, not the translation, very important, the interpretation. Think of it. Nobody has the gift of translation. They have the spiritual gift of interpretation. Why? Because the tongue that could be spoken could be a tongue, a language of this world unknown to everybody in the group, or it could be an unknown language or Paul the Apostle called it the tongues of angels, angelic communication that manifests this language in the gift of tongues. (17:45 - 18:14) The Bible says, wait, when that happens, when that happens, you wait because God will give somebody in the room the interpretation. And oh, by the way, according to the Bible, the interpretation will never be a message in tongues, never, forbidden in the Bible. There's no message in tongues. You want a message that's through preaching and teaching. That's where that comes from. You want a message that comes from a word of knowledge. (18:14 - 19:54) It comes from a word of wisdom or a word of exhortation, but there's never a message delivered via the gift of tongues. It's always a word that glorifies the Lord and gives him praise. And that's exactly right out of the book of Acts chapter two. Think of that. Boy, I can just hear my friends right now that are Pentecostals saying, I've never heard of such a thing in my life. It's because you haven't read your Bible. I'm dead serious and I say it in love. So just know that the Bible says that the gifts of the prophets are subject to the prophets. Our God is a God of order. Our God is a God of conduct and the gifts of God when they're in use should always glorify Christ, never cause confusion. It should never cause fear. It should actually embolden your faith and strengthen your faith. And so when these things are done, Christ is always honored and exalted and people become, those that are observing become more open to hearing the gospel. So I end with this. What would you rather have? Let's say, for example, let's say your dad is sick and he's very sick, critically, deathly sick. And let's say he's 50 years old and you're praying for your dad's healing. Okay, fine. That's good. (19:56 - 21:17) But you also know that your dad's not a believer. Your dad's an atheist and you're praying for his healing. Could God heal your dad and that causes him to have faith and he bows down to Jesus? Of course. Could you pray for your dad because you love your dad and you want him to be healed? Of course. What your dad does with the process of that healing, it's his choice, your dad could still remain an unbeliever. Okay. Is it possible that you say, Dad, I know that you don't believe in Jesus, but I'm going to put my hands on your shoulder or your head right now and I'm going to pray for you, Dad. And you pray for him and he's healed in that instant or in that same hour and he just jumps for joy and gives God glory and accepts Christ. Awesome. Awesome. Praise the Lord. Right. Let me introduce to you a greater healing. What if you pray for your dad and he's not physically healed and your dad's winds up suffering so much like my mom did, like my sister did. Oh, my sister suffered terribly for seven years from many cancers. (21:18 - 22:48) What about my dad? God didn't heal any of my family members that were riddled with cancer. The more they suffered, the more their personal ambition, hope in doctors, attempts to heal themselves, the more of their manmade pursuits evaporated, the more open they became to the gospel. What if I were to tell you that the greatest evangelist in my family's life, most effective, was not me preaching to my family. I did for gosh, 15, some of them 15 years, some 20 years. No effect until they suffered and suffered and suffered and they became incredibly aware of their mortality and they wound up accepting the Lord Jesus Christ, never receiving a healing. They bowed their knee, they gave their lives to Christ, confessed their sins, their lives were changed and died and went into glory. (22:49 - 24:08) Which is the more important healing? The healing of an ailment or disease or the healing of a lost dead soul that is redeemed for eternity in the arms of Christ safe? If we only pursued the preaching of the gospel, the making of disciples, evangelism for the soul of the lost individual, if we had so much zeal for their lost soul as we have zeal to see a miracle, imagine what kind of world this would be and what kind of church we would have. Because it's more important for somebody to wind up in heaven than for somebody to have their eyesight healed and they wind up going to hell. Strong words, right? All true. Hey, I welcome your comments. I'd love to know what you're thinking about this stuff. And if this ministry at all is making a difference to you, I hope you just let us know. And we don't ask for money, you know that. So how about this? How about we ask you can you, I'm not even sure how to do this because I don't do it myself. So here I'm telling you, boy, am I a hypocrite? I'm telling you to do this and I don't even do it myself. (24:08 - 25:14) And that is how do they, how do they give us a, is it a thumbs up? Is it a happy face? So whatever app you're watching this on, give us the like, give us the thumb. That sounds weird. Subscribe, ring the bell. I don't know what it is that would encourage us tremendously. So, and if, if none of this stuff matters, then let me know too, because it's a really nice day. I can start going to the beach instead of doing these things. Listen, we're serious about our faith. Jesus is our all in all. I hope he is for you as well. Christ is coming. Are you ready to meet him? You need to give your heart to Christ right now. Jesus said, you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. Are you born again? So what does that mean? Has God brought you to a place of having a crisis of faith where you surrender in your battle with God and yield to him? He is truly King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And you invite him into your life to take control. Sooner you do that, the happier you'll be in life, the more joyful you'll be for sure. (25:15 - 25:26) But most importantly, the more wonderful the end will be for you, because for us, the end is just the beginning with him forever. God bless you guys. Take care. (25:30 - 25:45) This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to Jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.