"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." —Exodus 7:10-12
God had sent Moses to deliver the children of
Israel out from under hard bondage in Egypt. Finally, after 400 years of
torment and slavery, the Israelites were about to be freed from Egypt. God
sent Moses and Aaron to confront Pharaoh, demanding the release of the
Israelites. Aaron accompanied Moses as his spokesman. God told Moses
and Aaron that Pharaoh was going to demand to see miracles. God had
instructed them what to do. When Pharaoh did ask to see a miracle, Aaron
tossed his rod down to the floor and it became a serpent. It should be to
no surprise to a Christian that God is a miracle working God.
However, what may be surprising to a newer believer who hasn't grown yet in spiritual understanding is that SATAN ALSO PERFORMS MIRACLES! The fact that Satan and his false prophets can perform miracles is documented in the Scriptures.
Exodus 7:11, "Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments."
Exodus 7:22, "And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said."
Exodus 8:7, "And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. "
It is no surprise to the knowledgeable believer that Satan has power given to him by God. When the Devil tempted Jesus in Luke chapter four, the Devil made an interesting statement to Jesus...
"And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it." —Luke 4:6
Photo to Right: Magician, David Blaine, who is helping to prepare the masses to receive the Antichrist.
Satan is an "finite" being. The Devil is NOT omnipotent, NOT omnipresent and NOT omniscient. Satan is a murderer. It wasn't God who murdered those 2,000 babies at the time of Christ's birth, it was Herod. Herod was so obsessed with keeping control of his reign over Rome that he was willing to murder 2,000 little innocent children in an attempt to kill the Christ child. Mass murderers ARE SATAN POSSESSED (murderers such as: Hitler, Pol Pot and the Roman Catholic Church during the early centuries and again in the holocaust). The Catholic Church has yet to officially condemn the holocaust of WWII. This is Satan's power—TO KILL, STEAL and DESTROY (John 10:10).
Satan is a limited being, corrupt and perverted in every sense of the term. Satan is a master of deceit, a liar through and through. It's interesting that the occult (illuminati, Skull and Bones, etc) likes to flaunt Satanism blatantly in front of our faces. Not to my surprise, the large majority of society either doesn't see the evil or doesn't care. It does not surprise me because most people do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. They have never been born-again. Society is filled with religious people, even professed "Christian" people who know all the lingo and jargon, but their hearts are far from God. They are phonies, on their way to Hell.
I certainly do not condemn them, for the Bible condemns all of us as guilty sinners deserving of the Lake of Fire (Romans 3:10-23; 6:23). The only way any person can go to Heaven is to have their sins forgiven. Only Jesus Christ can forgive sin, because only Jesus has the nail-scarred hands and feet. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...
"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;" —1st Corinthians 15:3
Bible prophecy is history written in advance. The following verses from the Book of Revelation reveals that the Antichrist will perform miracles to deceive the masses...
"And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." —Revelation 13:14
"For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." —Revelation 16:14
"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." —Revelation 19:20
Photo to Left: Criss Angel of Mindfreak, who is helping to prepare the masses to receive the Antichrist.
The Devil is a master counterfeiter with his false bibles, false religions, false prophets and false doctrines. As believers, we have the Holy Spirit of God living within our heart (1st John 4:4). Greater is He (Jesus) that is in us, than he (Satan) that is in the world.
We must test any miracles or wonders to decipher whether they be of God or Satan. Remember that Pharaoh's magicians had Satanic power to do miracles. Remember that the Antichrist WILL deceive the masses with miracles, signs, and wonders. The holy Bible clearly teaches that God speaks to us in these Last Days through His Son (Jesus Christ, the Word of God—Revelation 19:13; Hebrews 1:2). Let the Word of God and the Holy Spirit be your guide.
As born-again Christians, we must expose SATAN'S WORKS! If we don't do it, then who will? Do you think the Wiccan witches are going to expose the evils of Harry Potter? Do you think Oprah Winfrey is going to expose the New Age Movement? New Age is fast-becoming the biggest religion on earth. New Agers teach that there are MANY paths to Heaven; BUT, the Bible proclaims there is ONLY one, by faith in Jesus Christ alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12). Please do not be deceived... "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:14).
The Catholic Church is preparing the masses to receive the Antichrist.
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Carefully notice the New World Order Pyramid. This is the Image of Divine Mercy, by the famous patron saint, Our Lady of Faustina. |
Catholics are idolaters, worshipping everyone from the Pope to Mary. Exodus 20:4,5 strictly forbids even BOWING to statues or images. In fact, Roman Catholics are so wicked that they've even removed the 2nd Commandment from God's Ten Commandments, which forbids bowing to graven images. |
2nd Thessalonians 2:10 tells us that those who don't love the truth will follow the beast into perdition. Jesus Christ is one's only hope of escape. Do you love the truth? Ye must be born again!
May God speak to your heart as these words speak to your mind.
Bible Miracles and Modern-Day impostors!
Do we dare
question the power of God today? Does He not now have the same eternal,
unlimited power as always? Do we presume to limit the power of God in affirming
that no miracles occur today? The answer to these questions is an emphatic "no"!
Being omnipotent, God is able to do anything. What God is able to do and what He
wills to do are completely different issues.
God once created man from the dust, and woman from man's rib. He once parted the Red Sea to permit the escape of Israel from Egypt, and rained manna from heaven upon them. He provided quail in the wilderness, and water from the rock to supply Israel's needs. He gave commandments inscribed on stone with His finger. He once caused His Son to be born of a virgin, and Jesus performed numerous miracles ranging from feeding the hungry to raising the dead. None of these miracles are being witnessed in our time. To say that they are not is not to entertain doubts or define limits of divine power. It is merely to raise the question of what His will is for our day.
The term "miracle" has been subjected to indiscriminate usage in our time. Almost anything unusual is incorrectly styled a "miracle". God is present and active throughout our universe through instrumentality of natural laws, but even natural laws are those of whom God is author. A miracle is an instance of God's direct action, as distinguished from His mediate or indirect action through natural laws. For instance, when Jesus fed the 5,000 with a lad's lunch of five loaves and two fishes, this was a miracle. If the lad had fed himself with the lunch he had prepared, this would have been a perfectly natural event. (Matthew 14:15-21). The difference is that the latter would have been in perfect conformity with natural law; the former required utilizing divine power.
But is there not voluminous evidence that God is working today in the performing of miracles, such as supernatural healing, tongues-speaking, and many such things? We do not believe so. The evidence is far from conclusive. We have no evidence that any miracles of Biblical character are present today.
Some of the futile attempts to reproduce miracles of Biblical caliber are shabby and sometimes tragic replicas. Last August, the parents of a California youth was charged with manslaughter for withholding insulin from their son. The son died, but the father steadfastly insisted the Lord would raise the son from the dead in three days. This delusion did not come to pass. The minister of a 40 member church in Tennessee was freed of a manslaughter charge last summer when two of his members died after drinking strychnine to "demonstrate their faith" in divine, supernatural powers.
These are two of many tragic illustrations that are available. It is significant that they appealed to Mark 16:17-18 as authority for their faith and action. This text speaks of believers casting out devils, speaking in tongues, handling serpents, drinking poison, and healing the sick. All of these miracles are authorized by the same text - the same text others very selectively choose as their basis for tongues-speaking or healing.
Do not many people today believe in modern-day miracles? Yes, but such belief does not mean that it is authorized of the Word of God. Throughout human history there has been the spurious as well as the genuine miracle, error as well as truth, and the false as well as the factual, There have been people whose faith sincerely was based upon delusion, as well as those whose faith was anchored in Biblical truth. The magicians of Pharaoh sought to duplicate the miracles of Moses, and error is always a counterfeit of truth.
There have been groups claiming supernatural power that have had no connection with Christianity. Attempted healings and miracles have always occupied a conspicuous place in pagan religions, and mighty world rulers have gone to Delphi, Greece to seek oracles from the pagan temple to advise on their
battles. The sensational revival of the occult in our time illustrates the susceptibility of many people to accept the mystical and inexplicable. These occult groups can perform fetes just astonishing as anything offered by the modern-day faith healing advocates of Christianity.
God's Word is ultimate truth, and nothing is true that does not agree with that source. (John 17:17). To believe error about the continuation of supernatural powers beyond the limits of the apostolic age is an error as gross as any other occultism. Tile Lord acknowledged that many would claim to prophesy, expel demons, and perform many wonderful works that He would not know, and whose works He would not therefore authorize. (Matthew 7:22-23). There would arise, Christ warned, "false Christ, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders. . ." (Matthew 24:24). Servants of Satan would be able to display "power, and signs and lying wonders" (II Thess. 2:9). The Apostle Paul explained that we should not be astonished that such false teachers would appear, "for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (II Cor. 11:14).
A crucial question is how are we to discern true and false miracles? By what rule of Scripture would a "faith healer" establish that his work is authorized by God? Or that his "healing" is any more genuine than that of an African witch doctor?
Some pertinent points regarding the healings of Christ will serve as practical tests for professed healings today. (1) Jesus did not publicize His healings to create a sensational reputation, nor as an excuse for raising money; rather He at times commanded those healed to "tell no man' (Matthew 8:1-4, 9:27-31). (2) He healed all sorts of infirmities, with special attention to hopeless situations, for divine power does not fail. (3) He performed no partial healings. People were "made whole" by Christ. (Matthew 15:29-31; Mark 7:31-37). (4) Jesus never failed to heal a person He attempted to Heal. He never had any embarrassing explanations to make for failures. (5) No question was ever raised of the genuineness of His healings - as to whether the patient had actually been ill, or was actually healed. (6) Jesus did not heal by faith alone but by divine power. In only one case out of 31 examples did Jesus require faith. (Matt.9:27-3 In some situations the patient had no faith at all. (Luke 7:11-17; John 5:2-13).
Since modern miracle workers cannot conform to these conditions under which Christ ministered, they do not represent the same power He utilized. Miracles such as were performed by Christ and the Apostles were never intended to continue throughout all generations. Their primary purpose was never simply to cure the physically sick, for if this had been the case, Jesus would have traveled far more widely into all the countries of the world instead of remaining in Palestine.
The real purpose of New Testament miracles was to show that Christ and his inspired Apostles were speaking by divine authority. (Mark 16:19-20; Hebrews 2:3,, A fact once proven is always proven. After the inspired teachings which make up our New Testament were confirmed by the miracles of the First Century, they stand proven forever. The Bible teaches that we must now simply study the written accounts of these miracles in order to be convinced of the truthfulness of the Bible. (John 20:30-31). Modern-day miracles, therefore, are simply not needed in this age. (Luke 16:27-31).
