LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Those That Ask for Miracles
The Lord Jesus severely scolded the Jews for requesting miracles. They wanted Jesus to convince them that He was the Christ by doing miracles in their sight. However, the Lord did not grant them such a request.
The fact is that miracles do not produce faith in the heart, they merely satisfy the curiosity of the flesh. When in the story told by Jesus the rich man asks Abraham to resurrect a prophet to go and tell his family to repent, Abraham answers: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they listen if someone resurrects from the dead" (Luke 16:31). Not even the resurrection of a man could produce repentance for life, because true repentance is only produced by hearing and believing the Word of God. Jesus Himself resurrected and even then the majority did not believe in Him.
Those that ask for miracles move in the sphere of the flesh, in external things. What God is after is interior, inside the heart of man. Only God can see what is in that hidden corner and is able to come inside.
Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are Galilean cities that went into history as scenarios where the Lord did many miracles. Jesus had to scold them because they did not repent. "Wow to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Because if in Tyre and Sidon had been done the miracles that were done in you, they would have repented in dust and ashes" (Matthew 11:21). To Capernaum He said: "If the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, that city would have remained to this day". Few words are as severe as the ones the Lord addresses to those cities and those miracle-seeking men.
In another occasion, when the scribes and Pharisees asked the Lord: "Master, we want to see you doing a miracle", He answered them: "This evil and adulterous generation demands a sign; but no sign shall be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah". And that sign had nothing to do with portentous happenings to satisfy the people's curiosity, but was pointing to His own death and resurrection.
Immediately He compares that generation with a man from which an evil spirit had been evicted. The evil spirit returns later and takes possession of that man causing even greater damage to him. In the same way, that generation that was the object of the grace and the power of God, would later be shaken by Satan, and their latter state became worse than the previous one.
Those that ask for miracles expose themselves to a bad end. They do not have a heart to quietly listen to the Lord, nor to believe in His Word. Their evil heart is always seeking for an excuse to avoid repenting.
Paul, speaking to the Corinthians, says: "The Jews ask for miracles, and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which to the Jews is certainly a stumbling stone, and to the gentile nations is madness" (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). Neither the jews requesting miracles nor the Greeks seeking wisdom, please God. Only those that glory in Christ crucified satisfy His heart.
The cross of Christ is the sign of the prophet Jonah, the only miracle God gives man as testimony regarding His Son. One cannot really come to know Christ through miracles, but only by His cross. There God did the greatest miracle, a work of vast outreach.