Based on John 4:46-54 (New King James Version)
“So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.’ The nobleman said to Him, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your son lives.’ So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, ‘Your son lives!’ Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives.’ And he himself believed, and his whole household. This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.”
Believing in the Lord through signs and wonders has inherent problems, and they should not be the foundation for our faith in the Lord, and for many reasons. A great majority of people, and unfortunately, many who say that are believers have this problem, that they expect for God to demonstrate to them personally through signs and wonders His existence and power as a condition for them to believe.
The first problem that this issue of demanding signs and wonders of God has to do with a big problem involving pride and arrogance, and it is very easy to determine this because if someone wants for a another person to prove themselves to them is because they feel worthy of receiving such proof. In other words, by demanding from God that He needs to do something special so they can believe puts God in a position of service, like if God becomes God if He receives their seal of approval per se. Can a human being demand from a being like God proof that He is real? Let’s think on how absurd and completely out of place this issue is. If you really look at this, it can be categorized as insulting to God. Let’s put ourselves in God’s position for a moment: “The heavens and earth and the entire universe tells of My glory, everything visible and invisible knows that I am the Almighty, and the eternal powers that I have created acknowledge and worship Me for who I am, and I have to prove myself in some way to this person, to a being that is less than nothing, that I AM who I AM?” Do you understand how ridiculous and completely out of place this demand is? This is what the Bible says regarding this: “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.’” Matthew 12:38-42. So then, if a person desires to commit the absurdity of questioning God’s existence, they may want to think really hard on Who they are doubting and should brace themselves for the consequences, if there is no turning away from this mindset.
The other problem that emerges with waiting for God to prove His existence and capacities with signs and wonders is that they are not a good foundation for faith. The reason is because whatever these signs and wonders may be, since they are manifested in a temporary world, they are also temporary in nature. As an example, it can be said that the greatest miracle (physically speaking) that the Lord did on earth was raising the dead, and the Bible tells us that Jesus did this in different occasions. The most clear and definitive demonstration was when He raised Lazarus, because not only did He resurrect Lazarus, but we need to take into account that Lazarus was dead for days. Notwithstanding, and of course, it was something great, but Lazarus finally died yet again. Lazarus is not alive today physically speaking. So then, even though it was something great, it was something temporary. So, how can you take something that is temporary as a foundation for what should be eternal? In other words, what good is it to me that my faith in the Lord be founded on something temporary? What good is it to believe in something that cannot assure me eternity if I have the same proof in Lazarus and that he died again? We can say the same thing about the loaves of bread and fish, of the lepers He healed, of the lame He made walk, of the blind He gave sight to, etc. They are all finally temporary things, that yes, tell of the glory of God, of the veracity of the Lord Jesus, and the work of the Holy Spirit, but they have a limited result, and possibly, man could come to duplicate those things in some way, whether it be through medicine, science, and/or technology.
The other problem that surges is: “What if God does not answer in the way I want Him to, with a miracle?” What then? For example, the Apostle Paul was not healed from his thorn. The Apostle John died of old age in jail. The Apostle Peter died being crucified upside down. Many prophets had very sad endings humanly speaking, as it is written: “Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.” Hebrews 11:35b-39. What then? Did these people not have enough faith and that is why they ended up the way they did? That’s why we need to be very careful with what we listen to and what is used as a base for our faith because it is very easy to be drawn away by apostasy (demonic doctrines), by what is distorted from the Word of God (the devil uses the Word to make lies sound like truth). There will never be more faithful people than these or others spoken of in the Scriptures. And so, what then? We should simply not base our faith in God on things that are subject to our criteria, on the temporal, but rather, it should be based on the eternal, only on the Lord. It is written: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.” Hebrews 11:1-2.
The greatest miracle and sign that the Lord left us that is most useful to us is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the One who is at this very moment seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus is the One who gives eternal life to all who believe in Him and follow Him faithfully until the end, no matter what happens (even if things don’t turn out the way you want them). The basis of our faith should only be on the Lord because He is the Almighty and the Eternal God. He is the resurrection and the life. And when what is temporary is gone, He is the only one that remains forever and ever, and the only One that can give us of the life that really matters, eternal life. So then, what is the basis of your faith? Lord bless! John