In His Name Devotionals
"IF ONLY I COULD SEE A MIRACLE"
In His Name Devotionals
"IF ONLY I COULD SEE A MIRACLE"
Perhaps you’ve heard someone say something like: “If only I could see a real miracle with my own eyes, then I could believe what you Christians say is true.”
A coincidence doesn’t count. Neither do “everyday miracles” such as childbirth, delicate flowers, or beautiful sunsets count. Even when someone walks away from a grinding car crash with nothing worse than a bump on the head, that isn’t enough to be considered a legitimate miracle.
In the biblical sense of the term, a miracle is much more. It is a supernatural intervention in human history so dramatic and unmistakable that it is a sign of God’s direct activity. Moses and Israel at the Red Sea or Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus—now those were miracles.
Such an unbeliever as referred to above is speaking about first-order, big miracles of the biblical variety. He wants to see blind-from-birth eyes opened; deformed or amputated legs restored. Perhaps he would have been willing to consider going to a funeral home, waking over to a casket, and returning someone to life and family.
While no one can say first-order, big miracles never occur today, we can at least say that we’ve never witnessed one and certainly can’t perform one on command. They seem to have been rare even in biblical times.
Furthermore, it simply isn’t true that people who see miracles always become believers.
Three months after walking through the Sea of Reeds on dry ground, the Israelites set up a golden calf and called it “God.” In spite of what Jesus did in raising Lazarus from the dead before their eyes, one of the apostles later betrayed Him. If miracles didn’t always equate to faith in Bible times, then by what stretch of the imagination do we presume it would now?
In other words, if someone is determined not to believe, the God who has never been willing to overwhelm the disinterested will not force him to believe.
Remember what Abraham told the rich man in Jesus’ story (Luke 16:31)? He had asked Abraham to send someone from the dead to warn his five unbelieving brothers against the fate he was suffering. “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets,” he told him, “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Do you think he was right? Anybody who can explain away the Bible could also explain away a visit from the world to come as a dream, hallucination, or something he ate.
Just as faith is a choice, so is unbelief.
