Miracle workers, do you know of any? Right now, right today, do you personally know of any miracle worker walking the earth going from town to town healing all the sick, diseased, deformed, demon-possessed people? Have you ever known such a person?
We hear of the occasional miracle that goes beyond the ability of people to comprehend, and some attribute a miracle or two to certain people in the past. Since Christ walked the earth, since Christ's apostles walked the earth, there have not been miracles of such magnitude, and so widespread.
Guess what? When Jesus began to do the miracles He was doing, no one had heard of anyone doing such a thing before, either.
Today if a man started going from place to place healing everyone without regard to race, creed, nationality, finances and so on- and the word spread- there would be a whole lot of skeptics. How many of those skeptics would remain skeptical if they witnessed firsthand the miracles? How long before this man was on television and internet being live streamed as he healed people? Many would doubt it, they doubted Jesus even after witnessing the miracles themselves. They wanted people who had been known to be sick and deformed since birth to be liars, even as they could see, they could walk when they never had before! Liars the lot of them! But they weren't, Jesus was healing them all!
Miracles weren't enough though. They didn't cry to keep the miracle worker alive so He could keep healing all their sick and infirmed, and even their dying because- yes - He'd brought the dead back to life! They were consumed with hatred because the Healer wasn’t consulting them on how to do all His wonders, but was doing everything as it pleased Him, on His own gaining His own followers. The Healer was revealing the hypocrisy of the rulers - the rulers did not care about the welfare of the people- they preferred them in their unhealthy states as long as they were following their leadership. It was all about their power to dictate the rules. They honestly thought they were protecting God's truth because they had perverted that truth to suit them over time. Jesus was living a life of pure truth and they couldn't recognize that as being what it was. Even when their hearts were pricked by the truth, they steeled themselves against it because it would upset their entire way of life.
We do that.. We don't like anything upsetting our beliefs. A lot of people keep their beliefs so basic, so generic that they don't have to worry about anyone upsetting them. They keep the basic tenets of the Christian faith and when a strange belief comes along they can simply say 'to each his own as long as it doesn't disturb my walk with Christ'. They don't let it bother them and they pat themselves on the back for being such good Christ followers.
Unfortunately, the truth often arrives as a strange belief because men and woman have wallowed in their twisted truths covered in thick coatings of lies. When the coatings are removed and the twisting no more, they can't recognize the truth for what it is!
The leadership in Jesus' day did not recognize the truth when it was exposed, when it was pulled from the lies and perversions. The truth appeared to them to be the lie and they refused to believe otherwise. Today it is the same, exactly the same.
So many cherish their lies and the truth is so alien to them they can't recognize it at all.
May God open the eyes to ALL seeking ONLY HIS TRUTH no matter how much it interferes with cherished lies, traditions, and ways of life!
All through the love of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior now and forever!!!!!!!
Amen
******
CONTINUED-
(Excerpt)
Christ and the Pharisees -OR Christ's Faithfulness in Sabbath-Keeping.
BY A. T. JONES. 1894 [Religious Liberty Library, No. 18] [Cont.]
While they were allying themselves to political power, he was holding fast to God. While they were putting their trust in earthly power, he was showing his steadfast trust in God. For the next point on this, turn to the ninth chapter of John beginning with the first verse.
There Jesus met the man who had been born blind, and anointed his, eyes with clay, and sent him to the pool of Siloam, and the man went and washed and came seeing. His neighbors and others brought to the Pharisees him whose sight had been thus given him.
"And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes, . . . therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man it not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day." Verse 14-16.
The next instance is related in Luke 13:10-17:-
"And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her; and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.
And the ruler of the synagogue, answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work; in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.
The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed; and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him."
Again we read:-
"As he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, they watched him. And behold there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful lo heal on the Sabbath day? And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; and answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to these things." Luke 14:1-6.
Every time they watched to see whether lie would do so and so on the Sabbath day, they saw just what they were looking for. And they saw it so plainly, too, that there was no mistaking it, Nor did he ever make any apology for it; nor did he ever attempt to prove that what he did could not have "disturbed" anybody. Next we read in the 11th chapter of John. Jesus went on doing his miracles, even to raising Lazarus from the dead, and they went so far as to try to kill Lazarus, to destroy the evidence of Christ's power to raise the dead. But as the work went on with Christ, they found they were losing ground more and more with the people, as Christ was gaining more and more influence.
"Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. But some of them went their way to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done." John 11:45, 46.
That was when he had raised Lazarus from the dead. Now the story goes right on from there. Some of them went to the Pharisees and told what things Jesus had done in the resurrection of Lazarus. Then and there the chief priests and Pharisees took counsel and said:-
"What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation." Verses 47, 48. Now notice the argument that was in their hearts, and in their words in fact. They were accusing Jesus all the time of Sabbath breaking; and here now they say, "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him," and that will make all men Sabbath-breakers, and it will be a nation of Sabbath-breakers, and when the nation becomes a nation of Sabbath-breakers, the judgments of God will be visited upon us, and the Lord will bring the Romans and sweep away the whole nation.
"And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that of year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all. Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death." Verses 49, 50, 53.
Now why do they determine to put him to death? His Sabbath keeping which they insist is Sabbath-breaking is the reason. And now, they argue, if he goes on thus breaking the Sabbath, all men will believe on him, that will make all men Sabbath-breakers, and then this will be a whole nation of Sabbath-breakers; the nation itself will be a Sabbath-breaker. Therefore, in order to save the nation, they propose to kill Jesus. But when they do that, they are killing the Saviour. So in order to save the nation, yes, to save themselves and the nation, they would destroy the Saviour of themselves and the nation. Then whom did that make the Saviour of themselves and the nation?-
Themselves.
Jesus was the Saviour of the nation, and the Saviour of the people if they would believe on him. Jesus was keeping the Sabbath, the sign that he is the Saviour. So now they rejected his salvation, and himself, and all with it, Sabbath and all, in order to save the nation; so that makes them their own saviours, and this makes self-salvation the way of salvation,
instead of Christ the way of salvation.
Then in the last analysis, the contest between Christ and the Pharisees was whether it was salvation by Christ or salvation by themselves. They were destroying him, the Saviour of themselves and the nation, in order for themselves to save themselves and the nation. So that it came to just this: whether Christ is the way of salvation, or self is the way of salvation? And the Sabbath, in Christ's idea of the Sabbath, is the sign of salvation by Christ. Man's idea of the Sabbath is the sign of self-salvation, the salvation of self, by self, through self, and for self self all the time. So that, in the Sabbath question in that day, as in this, there was involved the question: Who is the Saviour? Is it Christ, by the faith and power of God alone? or is it the self-appointed church leaders, by the power and force of earthly
government? (End Excerpt)
No comments:
Post a Comment