Modern Day Miracles

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Modern Day Miracles

I invite you to take a quick trivia quiz.

Q: Which of the following are based on the New Testament?

Going to a church building on Sunday                         Jazzy costumes
Buildings with fat mortgages                                        Welch’s Grape Juice for communion
Seminaries                                                                   Denominations
Sitting silently in rows                                                   Divisions based on pet doctrines
Sermons by a pastor                                                    Rudolph and the Easter Bunny
Programmed services                                                  Control freak pastor

A: Awww, that was too easy, wasn’t it? Answer: None of the above.

You already knew these things all crept in long after the Bible was finished. Most of them came after Emperor Constantine issued his Edict of Milan in 313 AD, making Christianity legal (and profitable).

A harder question now…

Q: Shut your eyes and try to imagine today’s church without any of the above bric-a-brac. What would it look like? 

A: Tough, isn’t it? About all that’s left are you and the Lord and some good friends having a great time together! Well, that was the early church…..In other words, most everything in today’s church is foreign to the Bible! That doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Just distracting, perhaps. Or expensive. Or maybe a colossal, monumental, hippopotami waste of time.

At the very least, we can say this with confidence, the traditional western, institutionalized church of today rests solidly upon a foundation of digressions from Scripture.
[Courtesy Jim Rutz “Mega Shift”]

Q: Another question: Do miracles happen today? 

A: Many people, even dedicated Christians, read about the miracles in the New Testament as if they were reports from an ancient parallel universe. But consider:

A leper is healed in the market place.
A paralyzed man leaps from his bed.
A small bit of food feeds a large group.
Storm clouds turn on a dime.
The Gospel is preached in one language, but heard in another.
A desperate woman with a flow of blood is healed.
A demonized man, chained up for years, is delivered and set free.
Withered limbs are restored.
The deaf hear; the blind see.
A girl is raised from the dead.
And Jesus appears in a vision to one of His chief persecutors.

Great historical events by any measure. However, in these cited cases, all the above miracles have happened in the last 15 years!! (As documented in “Mega Shift”.)

Miracles are happening like popcorn when it starts popping. That alone is amazing, but these miracles are also attracting global numbers that no movement in history has ever seen. Richard Wurmbrand, Voice of the Martyrs founder, wrote of what God is doing through small groups of poor and persecuted followers of Jesus: “Whoever wishes to satisfy the longings of the heart of Jesus for the salvation of the souls of all mankind should sustain the Underground Church.”

For some reason, this phenomenal growth seems to be largely bypassing North America and Europe, where the overall growth rate is otherwise nearing zero, while becoming more and more common in developing nations. So when a North American or European hears of these things for the first time, it comes as a major revelation, as we’ve gotten so used to being on a no-growth treadmill.

“Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission
has forfeited its biblical right to exist.” — Oswald J. Smith

“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered;
it is a command to be obeyed” –– Hudson Taylor

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Modern Day Miracles