Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Jesus' Miracles Matter | Torah | Exodus 23:20-33

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Why did Jesus perform miracles? What do they have to do with the forgiveness of sins? Didn't other people perform miracles in the Bible? In today's episode, Patrick uses Exodus 23:20-33 to explain why Jesus performed miracles and their importance. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 23:20-33

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller, and right now we're going through the Book of Exodus. I remember when I became a Christian, I read through the Gospels for the first time, and I was a little bit surprised because, you know, when you become a Christian, the good news seems pretty straightforward. Jesus died for our sins so that we could be with God forever. But as I read the Gospels, I was a little bit shocked to realize that much of the space in the Gospels isn't dedicated to telling the story of the crucifixion and the resurrection. In fact, in every gospel, all of the gospel writers spent a lot more time talking about Jesus's life and ministry.

And specifically, they show that Jesus was an incredible miracle worker. Stop and think about it. Jesus healed the sick. He healed people who were lame. He healed people who were dead. I mean, he literally brought them back to life. He walked on water. He was able to turn a few loaves and fishes into a feast for 5,000 people. people. These stories are incredible. Jesus was clearly a powerful miracle worker. But I couldn't figure out what does the miracle working have to do with the forgiveness of sins? Why are these stories in the Gospels to begin with? And so I remember I went to an older Christian and I asked him this question. And he seemed a little bit perplexed too, but he went on to tell me this answer. He said, look, here's why we have the stories of the miracles of Jesus. They show us that

Jesus is God. When he heals people, when he casts out demons, when he walks on the water, when he feeds the 5,000, these are all signs that he is a divine being. He is both fully human and fully God. Now, I want to say this. That is a true statement. The Gospels do show us in myriad ways that Jesus isn't just a human. He is God incarnate. And yet, as I thought about his answer, something didn't add up for one very simple reason. If the miracles prove that Jesus is God, what do we do with the fact that there are other people who work miracles in the Bible who aren't God? Again, think about it for a second. Moses, he works miracles, Joshua, he works miracles.

Elijah, Elisha, even Jesus' disciples, Peter, Paul, James, all of these people work miracles in the Bible, and yet none of them are God. And so if working a miracle doesn't prove that you're God, otherwise we have to say that all of those people were gods, why were the miracles in the Bible? It can't simply be that they prove Jesus's divinity. And as I've studied this question and thought about it deeply, I've realized that the miracles, while they do show that Jesus is powerful, they're not there to show us primarily that He's God. They're there to show us something radically different. And to understand that, we have to go back to the Old Testament.

You see, the Bible is kind of like a Wikipedia page. You know on Wikipedia where you click one link and then it takes you to a different page and you click a different link on that page and it takes you to a different page? all those pages have all of these links between them. The Bible is the exact same way. When you read the New Testament, it's constantly linking back to the Old Testament. And when you read the Old Testament, it's constantly linking to other parts of the Old Testament. Right now, we're in the book of Exodus. And when we read the end of Exodus chapter 23, we read a little story that has hyperlinks all over the Bible. And when we discover what this is linking to, we find the answer to the question, why did Jesus work so many miracles? that might not be what you expect. So let's go directly to the passage. If you remember where we're at, we've received all of these laws, the Ten Commandments and the laws that follow them.

And Moses, he explains these laws to the people. But at the end of the laws, God tells the people what's going to happen if they walk with him, if they walk in his ways, if they follow these laws. And so I'm going to pick it up in Exodus 23, verse 20. So what God says, he says, behold, I send an angel. So this is the angel of Yahweh. It's a figure that appears throughout the Old Testament. And in many ways, seems to be much more than an angel because normal angels won't let people

bow down and worship them. But the angel of Yahweh, he not only speaks with Yahweh's voice, but can receive Yahweh's worship. And so, in a sense, the angel of Yahweh is a kind of incarnational presence of Yahweh with them. But let's keep going. Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Now, that little phrase, the place that I have prepared will have hyperlinks for you all the way to John 14, where Jesus talks about preparing a place for his disciples. He says, look, I'm going away. And they say,

where are you going? Why are you leaving? He says, I'm going to prepare a place for you in my father's house. Well, let's flip back to Exodus 23 one more time. And God describes what this place is going to be like. It's not a heavenly castle or a heavenly McMansion. God is taking the people into the promised land. It's a very earthy, earthly image of life experienced in God's presence, much like what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden, a special place where humans walked with God. Now check out what it's like when you live in this place. We'll pick up in verse 25. You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless you with bread and water, and I will take sickness away from you. None shall miscarry and be barren in the land. I will fulfill the

number of your days. So what's life like in the promised land? Well, life in the promised land is a lot like Eden. It's a place where there is no more sickness, a place where there is no more sorrow. It's a place where there is no more infertility. It's a place where everybody is well fed. I mean, remember, these people lived in a time where you spent 60 days out of every year going hungry. God says, in this place, there will be water. In this place, there will be bread. Don't you hear Eden? This passage is hyperlinking us back to Genesis 1 through 2, where we read the story of humanity with Eden. But it also links forward to the story of Jesus and the miracles. I mean, remember what happens here. We have a angel who is guiding and leading God's people. And again, this, the angel is allowing them to live in a place

without sickness, it says, where none miscarry, where all are well fed. Does this sound a little bit to you like Jesus's miracles, feeding the 5,000, healing the sick? In Matthew's Gospel, there's several places where he describes, kind of sums up Jesus's ministry. And he talks about the miracles among other things. And when you read the summation of Jesus' ministry in Matthew chapter 4, I can't help but hear echoes of Exodus 23. This is Matthew 4, verse 23. And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction among the people. Do you see what's happening? Jesus is like the angel of Yahweh. And where he goes, God's law is followed. Where he goes, God's kingdom is established, where he goes, God's kingdom is established,

where he goes, there's no more sickness. People are being healed. There are no more afflictions. Verse 24. So his fame spread throughout all Syria. And they brought him all the sick and those afflicted with various diseases and pains. Those oppressed by demons. Remember what the angel of Yahweh did? His job was to run out their enemies to make sure that when Israel came into the promised land, their enemies would be turned around. We didn't read those verses, but they're right there in Exodus 23. And that's what Jesus does. Where he goes, the enemies of God, the demonic power. are cast back. They're cast out. Let's keep going. They brought to him those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the

Dicopolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. Now we're beginning to get to the heart of why Jesus did his miracles. You see, when the people of Israel came into the promised land, they didn't obey the angel of Yahweh. They walked a different path. They redefined good and evil. They worshipped the idols. They rejected God. And as a result, they didn't get to experience the blessings of Eden. They didn't get to experience the blessings of a life right alongside God of a life where there is no more sickness and sorrow. And when Jesus shows up, he says, guess what? God hasn't given up on his Eden project. He's going to reboot Eden. He's going to restart it. And he calls this the kingdom of God. It's when God's kingdom comes on earth as in heaven. And so everywhere Jesus goes, what do the miracles

show? They show that the kingdom of God that Eden has returned through him. That's what his miracles were all about. They were all about showing how life is supposed to be. They were all about showing what happens when humans live with God faithfully. Life is whole. Life is healed. There's bread. There's water. There's fullness of all things. Now, here's why this is so important. Many Christians today, we have this idea that the Bible's message is essentially Jesus forgives my sins and then I die and I go off to some spiritual heavenly place in the sky to be with him forever. And only half of that story is really true. It's true. Jesus had to die for our sins because we're exactly like the Israelites.

We also, if we were brought into the promised land, would worship the idols. We would fail to live up to God's commandments. Jesus lived up to God's commandments. Jesus fulfilled them in our place. but not just that he died for our sins. He paid the penalty for our idolatry. He had to do this so that we could enter into Eden with him. But the other half of the story is that so that after I die, I can go be with God in this spiritual, heavenly place.

And while it might be true that after we die, some part of ourselves goes to be with Jesus, that's something the Bible hardly ever talks about. The Bible is fixated on something else. The Bible is fixated on resurrection. The notion that one day Jesus will return and when he does, we will be. resurrected with him and we will live on this earth, a renewed earth, with him forever. In other words, Jesus came to reestablish Eden. And when he returns, he will establish Eden once and for all. You see, Exodus 23, the passage we read in Matthew 4, the one about Jesus'

miracles and everything that he did, these also have a hyperlink to the very end of the story. If we go to Revelation 21 and we read about this renewed creation, when Jesus returns, what we catch here is that rather than people going up to heaven, that's not the story. John, who wrote the book of Revelation, describes heaven coming down to earth. Chapter 21, verse 1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, going up? No, coming down out of heaven from God, coming down to earth, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice saying, behold the dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people

this is taking us back to exus 23 the promise that the angel of yahweh will be with the people and people will dwell with God it's taking us back to eden when people lived with God in the garden it's saying this is finally happening and catch what happens when this takes place verse four he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. You see, that is God's vision for the future, that we would live on a renewed earth in renewed resurrected bodies and that we would dwell with him in a place where there is no more mourning or sadness. Let's flip forward one more chapter in Revelation and we'll pick up in chapter 22.

And I want you to hear these verses and I want you to see Eden. I want you to see Exodus 23, the people in the promised land. I want you to see Jesus healing the people throughout Israel. chapter 22 verse 1 then the angel showed me the river of the water of life bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city also on either side of the river the tree of life there's Eden again with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding its fruit in each season the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations no longer will there be anything a curse but the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more. It's this amazing poetic, symbolic picture of the way life should be. And it's a picture of Eden on earth. You see, when God rescued Israel, it was so that he could bring them to himself and so that he could reestablish Eden on earth. And through them, reach the nations, through them, heal the nation, through them, bring the nations into Israel so they could worship God and dwell with God.

Of course, Israel failed in its calling to do this, but Jesus took up the vocation, the calling of Israel, and he fulfilled its calling by healing people everywhere he went, establishing little outposts of the kingdom, and pointing forward to one day when he would return and make all things new. What's that mean for us today and our present, current moment? It means that you have a role to play in this story. Jesus at the end of the Gospel of Matthew sends out his disciples and says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. He'll the nations, he's saying, go do it, bring them into my kingdom. And what he's telling us in that moment is that just as the Israelites were sent out into the promised land, he is sending us out into this earth to tell people about him, to bring people to him, to call people, to follow the one true king, to receive forgiveness in his name,

and to know that one day in him we will have resurrection and the healing of all creation. That's your calling. That's your goal in life. that your life would be a little outpost of the kingdom of God, that your life would be a little outpost of Eden, heaven on earth. Live up to that calling, walk in that calling, not by your own power, not by your own strength, but by the grace of the one who is called you. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter.

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