Objection: God Does Great Miracles Only During Crucial Times in History

Those promoting this idea point to the fact that there were a lot of miracles when Israel came out of Egypt.  There were a lot of miracles at the time of Elijah and Elisha.  There were miracles during the Babylonian captivity.  There were a lot of miracles surrounding the ministry of Jesus, including the ones done by the apostles.  The conclusion is that miracles in history are “clustered” around crucial moments and do not happen continually.  Therefore, you are not supposed to believe that God would do miracles today.  It is sometimes added that we do not need miracles today.

Even if you agree with this position, that would be a case for, not against, miracles in our day.  Since Jesus is to return soon (the Scriptural signs of the “last days” are all around us), is this not a crucial period of history as well?  Is this any less notable than the other times mentioned above?  If this objection is true, that is precisely why we should see a profusion of miracles in our day.

But the proponents of this “cluster” theory declare that there are no real miracles going on today or in any recent time.  I don’t know where these people have been hiding, as I see no shortage of them.

It is true that the Middle Ages seemed to lack miracles, but being born again was at an all-time low then, too.  Was this because God’s saving power is reserved for specific “crucial” periods of history?  No, it has always been available.  The problem was that knowledge of the Scriptures that are “able to make you wise unto salvation” was at a low, and that is why more people were not saved.

The fact that miracles did not occur then does not mean that they could not have occurred.  There was little knowledge about God’s miracle-working power.  It was a matter of human ignorance, not the will of God.

The argument itself is rather thin because it is difficult to define why God specifically chose the time of Elijah and Elisha.  What great event was going on then?  Why then and not during the reign of earlier or later kings?  The reason given by one proponent of this theory is that Israel and Judah were at a critical stage in their relationship with God.  But this was surely true in many earlier and later instances.

Besides, there were other miracles throughout the Bible.  The miraculous victories in Canaan took place a generation after the miracles in Exodus.  Gideon and Samson did miracles in their own generations.  What about Sarah being able to conceive?  What about Jehoshaphat’s miraculous victory?  What about Hezekiah’s sundial that went backwards?  What about David stealing Saul’s sword while the army was miraculously put into a deep sleep?  What about the mighty outpouring in Solomon’s temple?  What about the fact that miracles happened from the time Jesus entered the ministry through the last chapter of Acts?

It is demonstrable that there are indeed “clusters” of miracles at certain times, although miracles have always been part of human history.  This is largely because when Israel strayed from the Lord, miracles were at a premium, and Israel did a lot of straying!  The miracles were done by those who clung to the Lord, not by the apostates.

It astounds me that anyone can read today’s news and say that we don’t need miracles today.  Don’t the people dying with AIDS need miracles?  Don’t those with birth defects need miracles?  Don’t the insane in our asylums need miracles?

It is a senseless retort that we don’t need miracles today because we don’t need proof of Christ’s divinity now that we have the Bible.  Don’t sinners today need every bit as much tangible proof of the resurrection as sinners in the days of the apostles?  Overall, people in the world are not very convinced!  Did God, who is “no respecter of persons,” give men of old a better chance to see His power than He is willing to give us?

Because many of the miracles were done on the medically hopeless, does it make sense to you that God would heal the incurable in past times, but would not heal the incurable, or even the curable, today?  Did He do it just to make a point about Jesus?  Should the terminally ill person wish that he were born in the first century so that we would have had a chance to be healed miraculously?  I would rather that this thought perish than that the sick perish!

Fortunately, the gift of “working of miracles” is still for today.  (The argument that the perfect has come [supposedly meaning the Bible] and that spiritual gifts ended with the last apostle is proved untrue elsewhere in this book.)  And as long as the gift of “working of miracles” is in operation, there will be miracles in operation!  In fact, even without a spiritual gift in operation, your faith can receive a miracle for yourself.  Read Galatians 3:5-6.

The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power (1 Corinthians 4:20).  To say that we have the Word without the power today is to say that the kingdom of God is not for today.

God and Jesus have not changed (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8, Hebrews 1:12).  If we are not seeing miracles, it is because we have changed, and not for the better.  If we have changed, let us change back and conform to the Bible standard rather than explaining away miracles with weak arguments.