Making Sense of Miracles in Acts and Today
Acts (To Be Continued...) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Please turn to Acts 28. Acts 28:1.
As we read this passage, the last chapter in Acts—I want to ask a controversial question...
it affects us theologically and biblically...
but also personally.
It’s phrased this way, and I have heard it asked “Why do we see so few miracles today?”
In other words, when I read the book of Acts (Or Gospels - Matthew Mark Luke and John), it is exciting. It is a powerful church in action — Jesus is Lord—and the church is seeing miracles, supernatural displays of God’s power.
It seems like when we read the Book of Acts, God shows up in dramatic, supernatural ways.
and it gets personal quickly with this question—because some of you have experienced some miracles in your life, but maybe some of you have not or not very often. Why does God sometime move dramatically or supernaturally in one case but not another?
I want to ask it like that...and let me read Act 28.
if you look at the map—Paul and his companions have traveled by ship from here—Caesarea on the bottom to the top left—they just shipwrecked on Malta—the island. Paul and his companions are on their way to Rome—Paul is still a prisoner. awaiting trial before Caesar.
1 Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. (Remember - Luke the author is still with them)
2 The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold.
3 Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand.
4 When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.”
5 But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.
6 The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god. (so that is miracle #1 we see here)...
7 There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days.
8 His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. (miracle #2)
9 When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. (miracles #’s 3 - a lot)
10 They honored us in many ways; and when we were ready to sail, they furnished us with the supplies we needed.
so at least 3 dramatic, supernatural interventions by God:
—the snake bites him—he doesn’t die or get sick
—he heals the father in law of Publius from fever and dysentery which is life-threatening diarrhea. People still die from that today.
—and then a lot of the islanders come—and get healed
these are all Gentiles, non-Jews. unbelievers.
now, we wonder...did Paul also preach the Gospel? we think so...because whenever miracles happened...that’s what He did-He pointed to Jesus. (based on other examples)
and when they declare he is a god—we saw this earlier—in chapter 14, after God used Paul to miraculously heal a man who had been crippled from birth, the people declared that Paul was a god—and Paul and Barnabas rip their clothes and point to God as the healer not them.
11 After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island—it was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. (the twin sons of the Greek god Zeus who protect sailors—ironically, we know that it is God who protects not them)
12 We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days.
13 From there we set sail and arrived at Rhegium. The next day the south wind came up, and on the following day we reached Puteoli.
14 There we found some brothers and sisters who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome.
15 The brothers and sisters there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged.
16 When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.
he finally gets to Rome....mission accomplished. God said Paul would get there...and God kept His promise.
so how do we tackle this question about miracles....why does it seem like the Bible, the book of Acts is teeming with miracles, but our lives seem so ordinary and non-spectacular.
definition of miracle— “A miracle is an unexpected outpouring of God’s power in an event that defies ordinary explanation....for the purpose of advancing God’s kingdom.” another resource (New Dictionary of Theology) says the word “miracle comes from the Latin miraculum, meaning a wonder. It suggests supernatural interference with nature or the course of events.”
One theologian was so helpful in answer this—breaks it down in 3 ways...
There are fewer miracles in the Bible than you think. (yes there’s a lot....but they happen less frequently than we would think)
so brainstorm with me—what are some examples of miracles we see in Scripture
(looking at my table of contents...) certainly, you could say God creating all things by speaking is a miracle He performed...but I am thinking more about 3 times periods:
Exodus - Joshua time period. - 10 plagues-where God used Moses to send plagues of judgment against the Egyptians. The Egyptians held the Israelites in slavery, and God sent plagues of frogs, flies, locusts, hail, death of livestock, and eventually the killing of all firstborn sons of Egypt, and he even parted the Red Sea. He provided manna from heaven and quail. Moses got water from a rock (another miracle). as they go into the Promised Land - under Joshua - sun stands still, the walls of Jericho come down. so that Exodus - Promised Land period. but it’s not everyday...
Elijah and Elisha 1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 10 These are 2 prophets that God called. Elijah is famous for confronting the prophets of Baal—all 450 of them to a contest. The contest was to see whose God would answer with fire—and light a sacrifice. The prophets of Baal tried and failed, Elijah prayed and God sent fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice. and there are other miracles they perform like raising someone from the dead. Elisha heals Naaman the Syrian officer of leprosy.
Jesus - at least 37 miracles and many more...
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Acts and the Apostles
in our book, I started looking for the miracles:
43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.
3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.
11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,
12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.
Acts 3- Peter and John heal a man crippled from birth—that causes quite a stir
Acts 5 and Acts 12 and Acts 16 - miraculous prison breaks where God breaks his people out of jail
Acts 9 - Peter heals another crippled man and raises Dorcas from the dead
Acts 14 - Paul heals a man lame from birth - he is also stoned, pelted with rocks, left for dead, and amazingly just gets up
Acts 16 - he casts out a demon
I also asked the question of this of Acts - who is actually performing the miracles? Yes God of course, but who is God working through?
Apostles
like Peter
Paul
Stephen (Acts 6:8)
Philip (Acts 8:6) (2 of the original 7 chosen by the early church to help with food distribution)
God uses a guy named Ananias to lay hands on Paul to get his sight back (Acts 9)
so 5 different people—really 4.
we even see miracles of judgment - God used Paul to blind a sorcerer (Acts 13)
8 resurrections mentioned in Scripture:
Elijah - raises the widow’s son (1 Kings 17)
Elisha - raises the widow’s son (2 Kings 4)
Jesus - raises 3 people from the dead - widows son at Nain (Luke 7), Jairus’ daughter (syngogue ruler Mark 5:21-43), friend Lazarus John 11)
Peter - Dorcas (Acts 9:36-43)
Paul - Eutychus (Acts 20:7-11)
Paul - Acts 14 - gets up from being dead
9 if you count Jesus
that may seem like a lot and certainly they continued
20 You performed signs and wonders in Egypt and have continued them to this day, in Israel and among all mankind, and have gained the renown that is still yours.
but look at Psalm 77:11
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
they were look back to books like Exodus...Joshua...to the days of Moses and Joshua...
John Piper says: It’s simply a great mistake to think that there are miracles running all through the history of God’s people as the Bible records it. They were not running all through the history of God’s people. They sprung up around certain periods of time like the exodus and like the ministries of Elijah and Elisha.
Most of the time, the saints of the Old Testament were living by faith in the promises of God for the future, rooted in the past wonders of God that he had worked. This is the way we live our lives today — by faith in the promises of God, for a kingdom that’s yet to be consummated, by looking back to the decisive work of Jesus Christ in the Bible.
and even in the NT—Jesus raised (as far as we know) 3 people from the dead...not everyone.
even in Acts—there are a few verses that highlight lots of miracles—but not every second.
in fact, the apostles suffered much! their colleagues got sick.
Paul even says
20 Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus.
why didn’t Paul heal him? maybe he couldn’t heal every second of the day.
in Acts 12 James is killed with the sword by Herod and Peter is miraculously freed.
Acts 28—Paul does these miracles (God does them through Paul) but in Acts 21-28 he still waited in jail over 4 years...waiting. He still got in shipwrecks even though God provided)
so it’s a little more complicated than we think.
Paul mentions his thorn in the flesh in 2 Cor. 12.
so there are probably fewer miracles than we think...they are not in every book nor every chapter.
There are more miracles today in our world than you know.
one theologian says it like this- “The second observation I would make is that there are probably more miracles happening today than we realize.
If we could collect all the authentic stories all over the world — from all the missionaries and all the saints in the all the countries of the world, all the cultures of the world — if we could collect all the millions of encounters between Christians and demons and Christians and sickness and all the so-called coincidences of the world, we would be stunned. We would think we were living in a world of miracles, which we are.”
If we could pass the microphone around and say have you ever experienced some type of a miracle—I think a lot of us would say “yes” whether it was very dramatic or we just saw God answer prayer in a very evident way. or God provide in an amazing way.
for those who are very skeptical and scholarly - and there is a reputable scholar named Professor Craig Keener who wrote a book called “Miracles Today, The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World.” professor at Asbury Seminary… it contains eye witness accounts of miracles from around the world. many have been verified by medical professional and Keener goes to painstaking academic detailing to show these are true accounts. it is just account after account...it almost gets boring—but it’s meant to bolster faith. Keener discusses a range of topics including why there are more miraculous events taking place in the developing world, what happens when healing doesn’t happen, and God being at work in modern medicine.
I reached out to Joe Johns, who is one of the directors at World Partners, the Missions arm of the Missionary Church, and asked if he knew of any recent miraculous stories. and he sent me the following. and interestingly—this is one of the missionaries we also support in our church.
This missionary services in Europe. and I have changed the names to protect identities:
Some years ago, we were taking a Pneumatology course, and the title of the textbook was "Do miracles happen today?" I remember having much stronger opinions then and many things were a matter of yes or no for me. Later on, I guess I've grown a bit or just gained more experience and I've looked at it as a good theological discussion. But stories like Dhiraj's (John) always remind me of a reality of the Kingdom that is far deeper than any theological discussion we might engage in.
A few weeks ago, a mid aged man came to us and said that he wants to learn more about Jesus and the Bible. He said his name is Dhiraj (John), and I remembered immediately that I've seen him before at our Christmas celebration lunch, so we decided to meet in his sandwich shop and discuss. He said that people are coming to his shop to know more about Jesus, but he doesn't know what to tell them, because he is a Brahma Hindu from East Asia. Now, why would people come to a sandwich shop to learn about Jesus? Well, what follows is probably one of the most unbelievable stories that I've heard so far... this is a short version and I'll retell it the best I can.
One morning, Dhiraj (John) woke up at his home and felt a strong pain in his chest. He was alone with his two little girls at home and couldn't even reach the phone to call anyone. His wife was at work. Before the girls woke up, Dhiraj (Bob) had a vision when a man named Jesus came to him and said, "It is not your time yet, but follow me." From that moment, he doesn't remember anything, but here is the weird part of the story. He woke in the hospital bed in the emergency room with a nurse over him asking, Who brought you here? He simply responded, Jesus... and fell back asleep.
There was no emergency call, no hospital admission record, no one from his neighbors brought him over, not even his girls know what happened; he simply disappeared and ended up on the hospital bed. Later that day, Dhiraj (Bob) had seen a man in a white robe coming twice in his room and administering some sort of medicine to him. But, again, there is no record of any doctor coming into his room, let alone giving him medication. So, the story quickly became a local mit, it even ended up in local newspapers.
After a few days, Dhiraj (John) was released from the hospital with a paper that he had suffered a major heart attack, but that no further treatment was needed, because he is healthy now. So, instead of going home, he went into the music store, bought a guitar, and when he arrived home, his wife testified that he started singing some songs in the Nepali language that she had never heard before, and they were about Jesus. And yet, he had never played the guitar before.
So, how a sandwich shop owner becomes a local legend in a hospital and all over the city, no one knows... but he wants to know more about Jesus so he can share the good news with others. We agreed that we will meet every Wednesday in his sandwich shop and study the Bible together.
Would you pray for wisdom, guidance, and leading of the Spirit as Dhiraj (John) travels the journey from a heart attack to a sandwich shop disciple maker?
“Hope this incredible story encourages you and reminds you that Jesus is at work. Sometimes in ways unimaginable to us.”
in fact, let’s pray for that story right now.
3. We must remember the purpose of miracles. (4 purposes mentioned in Scripture) (from Sam Storms)
at least 4...and this gets at our motivation for why we want them.
The miraculous, in whatever form in which it appeared, served several other distinct purposes:
doxological (to glorify God—Matt. 15:29–31; John 2:11; 9:3; 11:4, 40);
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
evangelistic (to evangelize) to prepare the way for the gospel to be made known—see Acts 9:32–43); Acts 28:7-10)
42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.
pastoral (to show God cares) as an expression of compassion and love and care for the sheep—Matt. 14:14; Mark 1:40–41);
14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
and edification (that is, to build up believers, and strengthen believers, for the common good—1 Cor. 12:7; 1 Cor. 14:3–5, 26).
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Storms, Sam. Tough Topics: Biblical Answers to 25 Challenging Questions (p. 273). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
those are the 4 main purposes—and that challenges us....because miracles are not about us.
sometimes we think if God did a miracle then I would believer or my loved one...
in fact, sometimes miracles happened and still people did not believe in Scripture.
22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see.
23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”
the purpose of miracles reminds us that they are not about us, or our agenda, or our will—but God’s will. And he can do a miracle or give us the grace to sustain us. (see vs. 9)
7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
4. the final challenge...
so the challenge...
if you are a skeptic of miracles—being more open. praying for God to move—whether he moves through someone with a spiritual gift of healing or heals directly through prayer—it’s all about God getting the glory. being open to how God works in unusual ways to advance His kingdom.
if you are one who expects miracles and the supernatural all the time, while I admire your faith, and you may have a spiritual gift of healing or miracles that God uses for his glory, don’t be surprised when suffering comes. Be faithful even when it does. God can also work through ordinary, normal, persevering ways..even suffering—the cross shows us that.
this gets at the definition of miracles—-think of Lydia - Acts 16, and the shipwreck...
Tim Keller quote on miracles?
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
The most instructive thing about this text is, however, what it says about the purpose of Biblical miracles. They lead not simply to cognitive belief, but to worship, to awe and wonder. Jesus’s miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce. You never see him say something like: “See that tree over there? Watch me make it burst into flames!” Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead. Why? We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.
Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (pp. 95-96). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
how is God calling us to apply these things?
