What Are The Three Miracles That Are Unique To The Jewish Messiah?
Question: What are the three miracles that are unique to the Jewish Messiah which they expected in the first century at the times of expectation of His arrival according to the Talmud? Why did Jesus tell the man healed of leprosy to go and show it to the Pharisees? Why Did the Pharisees deny a born blind man's testimony of receiving his sight from Jesus? Why did Jesus tell the paralyzed man to walk so that people may know that as a man Jesus has the power to forgive sins? I ask this because I do believe with you that Satan and his demons can do false miracles which are very close to the real ones and deceive the saints.
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
Talmud is the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law and legend comprising the Mishnah and the Gemara. There are two versions of the Talmud: the Babylonian Talmud (which dates from the 5th century AD but includes earlier material) and the earlier Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud.
The, later, Jewish Babylonian Talmud concurs that the Messiah would come during a time of Roman rule:
Rav says: The son of David will not come until the evil Roman kingdom will disperse throughout Eretz Yisrael for nine months, as it is stated: “Therefore will He give them up, until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the remnant of his brethren shall return with the children of Israel” (Micah 5:2). Once a period equivalent to a term of pregnancy passes, the redemption will come. (Sanhedrin 98b)
Notice that the above shows that some Jews believed that the Messiah would come during the time of the Roman occupation, which began in 40 B.C. Thus, this is consistent with Jesus' arrival.
Yes the apostle Paul says about Satan and his demons along with his covetous money-grabbing and power seeking, flesh indulging men and women with lustful eyes who continue the evil deeds without regret as, "13 God never sent those men at all; they are "phonies" who have fooled you into thinking they are Christ's apostles. 14 Yet I am not surprised! Satan can change himself into an angel of light, 15 so it is no wonder his servants can do it too, and seem like godly ministers. In the end they will get every bit of punishment their wicked deeds deserve." (2 Cor 11:13-15, NLT). This does mean that Satan can use the calling of God in a unsaved man to be used for his purpose and activities of rebellion against God (Rom 11:29), so God does not send these false ministers to work miracles, but Satan does these things to deceive people.
The Work Of Satan: Web Of Lies And Deceit
Believers are no longer under the rule of Satan as they are in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ who is God's beloved only begotten Son, but can get caught in the lies of the devil if they conform themselves to the world around them, and could waste their earthly lives to live selfishly without fulfilling God's purpose for their lives (Col 1:13). Unbelievers, on the other hand, are caught "in the snare of the devil" (2 Timothy 2:26), lie in the "power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19), and are in bondage to Satan (Ephesians 2:2).
In many nations around the world, Satan has so many deceivers like Gurus, false prophets and false messiah and places of deceit like Mosques and Temples and even Churches which hold artifacts of old to boast of divine power present in them to cause great wonders, signs and miracles of amusements, which in many cases does include miracles for the bodily healing too and for getting a baby through healing the problem of infertility and things like these. All of these things are as discussed above, are the dispensary of God's power through Satanic agencies which deceive people and keep them from truth and salvation.
Satanic Footprints In Antichrist
In our generation Antichrist as foretold by the apostle Paul and every other writers of the New Testament who agree with unison, that the truth about the end is about to be revealed as all signs of it are happening before us in every sphere of life, apostle Paul said,".... For that day [(i.e.) the day of Rapture] will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the one who brings destruction. 4 He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God. 9 This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles. 10 He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. 11 So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. 12 Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth." (2 Thess 2:3-4, 9-12, NLT). God sends and allows deception to test the righteous, purify them and commend them with both temporal and eternal rewards when they are alert to find the truth and reject it (Rev 2:2), but then when he does sends the salvation message and people reject it out rightly to God's face and thus "refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them", to these people "God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and thus they will believe these lies" of "the work of Satan [which is done] with counterfeit power and signs and miracles". So as Christians we should not fall for power and signs and miracles, but rather we should be vigilant enough to check whether the truth of God remain in the life and speech of the worker of miracles and in those places where they boast of divine power working miracles, if it does not exist we should immediately run away and have no further contact with these people in any way (Matt 7:15-20).
When Satanic worker does counterfeit satanic miracles, the atmosphere will look more damp with self-glory and no presence of God in it to rejoice and praise God (Acts 3:8; Luke 18:43). God will never share his glory with another human or idols (Isa 42:8), so either it is God's miracle done through his humble servants who give all the glory to God or it is satanic miracle done by his workers who receive all the laurels for the miracles they have done (Acts 8:9-11; 14:14-18).
Satan The Leader Of Those In Darkness
Satan can go before God and receive power on behalf of those people who are under him through his habitual grip of sin in any area of their lives (Job 31:1; 1:12; John 8:34; 1 John 3:8), (i.e.) under the major influence on the ideals, opinions, goals, hopes and views of the majority of people (2 Cor 4:4), where he holds under his iron grip and sway the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce which includes the thoughts, ideas, speculations and false religions of the world which are under his control and have sprung from his lies and deceptions (Matt 4:8-9). Jesus did not even have an iota of the thoughts of Satan in his mind because he lived by the Word of God and was fully influenced by it alone (Matt 4:4; John 14:30-31; 8:46). Jesus through his life, death and resurrection have become the leader and representative before God on behalf of all the new creation who believe Him for the last two thousand years. He disperses God's power now over the lives of His people who follow Him and are called as Christians (2 Cor 5:17; Acts 11:26).
God Or Satan's Power, You Decide!
We see in Exodus 7:10-12 how God differentiates between the miracles He did through his servant Moses and the magicians of Egypt who did the same, here is what Moses revealed through his book of Torah, "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."
In the above verses we see that even though the magicians who were wise men and sorcerers did just like the miracle power of God with their power that they received through Satan, God honored and differentiated his mighty holy power by making serpent of Aaron's rod swallow up their rods.
When the waters of Egypt became blood through Aaron stretching out his hand while holding his rod in his hand over the waters of Egypt, the Bible says, "the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments" (Exo 7:22).
Again under God's instruction through Moses. when Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, the frogs came up on all the land of Egypt, the Bible says, "the magicians did so with their enchantments of secret arts, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt (Exo 8:6-7).
But remember, the counterfeit power cannot go on like the real power of God in producing all impossible to miraculously become possible. God draws a line at certain point of time and says enough is enough, and further only glorifies His holy and glorious name for all to see and know that there is none comparable to Him who is the Creator of all things.
Again this is what we see when in the next miracle Aaron under the instruction of Moses did by stretching out his hand with his rod and striking the dust of the earth to fill the whole land with lice on man and beast, here is what we see in the Bible of what further happened, "18 Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. 19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” (Exo 8:18-19). GLORY TO GOD!
Counterfeit Cannot Be Original, So Seek The Original
So there is a limit to the counterfeit power of Satan which God allows to deceive people, God never shares his glory with any other man who works counterfeit miracles after a certain time. But rather in the midst of it all, he sets limitation to it, so that people will seek for the reality of God's power by faith and leave the limited amusement which Satan shows to people in order to keep them under fear and thus control their lives.
It seems, based on the Book of Isaiah chapter 35, that expectations were increasing among the Jews of the third century BC that when the Messiah comes, he alone will be able to perform what is known, not the three but rather “The Four Miracles of the Messiah”:
1) Healing a leper,
2) Healing a man born blind,
3) Casting out a mute demon and
4) Raising a man who has been considered dead for at least four days.
This is the reason when John who was in prison doubted his own words of declaration through which he introduced Messiah to Israel, because of not seeing a ruling powerful Messiah according to expectation of those times, which if it is true he would have already been out of jail, Jesus replied and sent message back to him saying, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:22).
Thus we know God drew a line and separated the class of miracles which Jesus and his disciples did which authenticated Him as the Messiah of Israel (John 11:4; 6:2; 5:36; 4:48; 14:11-12), the miracles that Jesus and His disciples performed for all to see, attested to a wide range of things over which Jesus had authority. He had authority over the forces of nature, over diseases, over demons, over creation and even over death. Thus truly these were Messianic miracles of the tall order of heaven's authentication and seal over the Messiah and his disciples that none other would be able to do expect in His name for His Glory (Mark 9:38-39, 40; Matt 10:6-8; Luke 10:9-20).
Jesus told the men healed of leprosy to go and show it to the Priests in the temple according to the Law, because it was the indication to them that Messiah has arrived (Luke 5:14; 17:14; Matt 8:1-4). The priest was a professional diagnoser of leprosy according to the law of Moses which they followed (Lev 14:3-7). If the priest checked the leper and declared him clean, he will be giving expert witness to the authenticity of the miracle of Jesus, and therefore the Law of Moses through this priest will be testifying to Jesus as "a Prophet" who should be obeyed when He speaks the very word of God which Moses commanded the people of Israel (Deut 18:15--22; John 10:37, 38-39).
Unlike false prophets, who performed wonders in the name of idols (Deut 13:1-11; John 10:32-33), Jesus always acted in the name of the God of Israel alone. Every miracle performed by Him was in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Matt 22:32).
Again the Pharisees denied the born blind man's testimony of receiving his sight from Jesus, because if they receive it as authentic miracle, then they have to accept Jesus as the true Messiah of God who has already come and therefore they should be obeying Him and walk in reverence as Moses prophesied to them already of a Prophet just like himself (John, 9:1–12).
The paralytic man healed at the pool of Bethesda told to the Jews that Jesus healed him, and it became a testimony to them that Messiah has been among them, but they rejected Him because of disobedience to the law of Moses that they boasted to have been following it perfectly (John 5:1-15).
When Jesus casted out demons, these same religious experts of the law accused Him of doing this miracle through the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons because if they would publicly accept the miracle of demon driving by the power and finger of God, then they have to accept him as the Messiah before the same people which they did not want to accept (Matt 12:22-32), which caused them to commit the unpardonable sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit's conviction towards salvation which led them straight to hell fire.
If Jesus indeed used satanic sorcery or witchcraft to heal the demoniacs, He wouldn’t have been able to heal that leper, man born blind or raise a dead man to give life after three days of being already there in the grave. God would not have allowed Him to do that which is reserved for the Messiah alone.
When Jesus raised the dead man Lazarus after three days in the Tomb and revealed His Glory, the chief priests and Pharisees hatched up plans to kill Him knowing that he has worked true signs and that all people will come to believe Him (John 11:42-53). One of the main reason they rejected the irrefutable sign of resurrection is because, if they accept Him as the Messiah, then they were afraid that people of the whole nation of Israel will reject them who were working as the mercenaries of Romans and will follow after Him which will cause the Romans to invade them to take their land.
Thus we come to know Jesus as the Son of God was perfectly uncreated God and as the son of man he was perfectly a human who had the power to forgive the sins of all mankind (Matt 9:1-8), and also because the Jewish nation rejected him when He came to save them from sin in his first coming as Messiah, since then the opportunity has been given to all nations around the world to choose Him as their Messiah and be saved from sin until at the time of His second coming during which the Jewish nation of Israel will accept Him as their Messiah.
So now the Church is the people of God through whom Jesus Christ is proving Himself as the Messiah of the whole world to help them to accept Him and be saved from their sins. So the agency of the Church is the only means through which true miracles of God through the Holy Spirit will happen until Jesus Himself along with the Church will come to the earth for a second time and will rule for a thousand years to give the Sabbath rest to the whole world through Theocracy.
Be Warned Of Counterfeit, And Stay In Truth Not To Be Deceived!
Jesus Christ and his apostles warned the end time Church to be vigilant so that they will not be deceived by the end time counterfeit miracles of false prophets, false messiah and the Antichrist and his followers who will try to come in his name and try to deceive many (Matt 24:4-5).
So the bottom line is, false miracles, signs and wonders happen for a reason, to deceive those who are already hell bent on the way to destruction (2 Thess 2:10), and it also happens for the saints to be vigilant by heeding the words of Jesus (Mattt 24:3-14), so that they could be raptured as promised by Jesus Christ which He did for all those who are obedient to Him and His voice, they will be kept away from the Tribulation unlike the disobedient and deceived who will partake in this worldwide Tribulation that is going to come in all the world to test and separate those who are on the Lord's side and those who are on the Antichrist satanic side (Rev 3:10). Be watchful and overcome by faith as a overcomer, and be persistent and endure to the end (Matt 24:13).
Much Blessings....
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