In the first posting I highlighted a serious problem relative to God’s miracles: People involved in the act assume that the “headline” is God’s reason for performing it.  Therefore they ignore the “fine print” which explains His reason for performing the “headline.”

Another problem caused by the headline–fine print syndrome involves another assumption.  Among those witnessing or learning about God’s performance of a miracle it is assumed that the person through whom God performed the miracle is a true Christian who is in right standing with Him.  As this Bible-based series will prove, such an assumption is wrong in the vast majority of cases.  Just as God used an ass to speak to a false prophet (Baalam), He uses false prophets to “speak to” false Christians.  Behind every miraculous (physical) act is a (spiritual) message: “REPENT AND BE CONVERTED THAT YOUR SINS MAY BE BLOTTED OUT (John the Baptist). “REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL” (Jesus of Nazareth).  To sin is to break God’s Ten Commandment Law–His stone-etched summation of His Word from Genesis to Revelation (1 Jn. 3:4).  To believe the Law is to obey It (Jam. 2:14,17,18,20).  The message God is sending to today’s unbelieving, disobedient church is: REPENT, STUDY THE LAW, BELIEVE AND OBEY IT.  This was the message Jesus preached during His time on earth.  He used miracles, signs and wonders (headlines) to gain their attention so that He and His disciples could teach them God’s Truths (fine print).  He does the same thing for the same reason today relative to professing Christendom.  The ancient Jews embraced His miracles but rejected the message behind them.  The Institutional Church is following in their religious footsteps.  Their gospel is about Jesus Christ–the person.  God’s gospel is about what He taught.  In John 12:48-50 Jesus warns about committing this error, noting that He Himself would not judge mankind, but that “… THE WORDS THAT I HAVE SPOKEN, THEY WILL JUDGE YOU ON THAT DAY.”  On that day He will “open the books” (of the Bible) and compare our lives to what is written therein (Rev. 20:12).

The Almighty is known for doing things in ways that often baffle mortal men. At times I have meditated on this phenomenon and wondered why He does what He does the way He does it.  God’s message to me is that I am to believe Him, not question Him.  If it is in the Bible, I am to believe it.  Period.  At times He has told me to do things I “knew” would not work.  Nevertheless, I would do them and miracles would happen.  Why?  BECAUSE HE TOLD ME TO, NOT BECAUSE THEY MADE SENSE.  His choice of vessels through which to act often does not make intellectual sense.  For example, He usually uses heathen (church) people to get the attention of other church people.  I assume that He does it this way because the church rejects His true saints.  Nothing we do is noticed by those in the Institutional Church because they view us as reprobates who operate outside the bounds of “true Christianity.”  Jesus and the apostles, not to mention the millions who came after them, were treated in the same fashion.  All were rejected by those in the religious “know.”  Jesus and eleven of His original apostles were martyred.  Over 50 million people were killed during the Catholic Inquisition, many of whom were God’s true saints who were martyred because they were outside the bounds of acceptable religion.  Scripturally, God compares His true church to a mustard seed and Satan’s false church to a mustard tree.  Few (the seed), He reminds us in Matthew 7:13,14, believe and obey Him.  On the other hand, many (the tree) follow Satan.  Ironically, those in the tree “know” that they are serving the Biblical God, and that the seed are not.  Truly, “that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  This includes the church (mustard tree) world.  The Lord uses church heathen to speak to church heathen because they will not listen to His people.  For example, I prayed for a woman’s healing and He healed her instantly and totally.  She then accused me of using witchcraft to heal her.  He then told me that He was going to kill her and, in a vision, how He was going to do it.  She was one of three church people He told me that He would kill for rejecting His Word.  Each one died shortly after rejecting what I told them.    During the time He was using me in miraculous ways,  I WAS NOT ONE OF HIS PEOPLE.  I was a spiritual heathen, a headline hunting Gentile.  It would be several years before I would begin to search out the fine print, believe it and obey it.  Then, and only then, was I converted. L.J.