Probably “criticism” is the greatest power in the hands of an enemy. Because human beings become conditioned by a constant pattern of enforcement through repetition, frequent criticism tends to be a popular way for “control freaks” to control a good leader. A smart leader must be careful by evaluating what they hear. It’s probably a good idea to consider all criticism as a tool that can be turned into something good. For example, a person may criticize you for driving a Mercedes. However, it might be smart to examine the reasons why this person is criticizing you before you trade in your Mercedes for a Volkswagen. On the other hand, if several people have made similar comments about your car, it would be unwise to altogether ignore these negative remarks.

Image: Dylan Gillis

You may be totally destroyed if you consider every critical remark as the Gospel truth, but ignoring them is equally dangerous. It’s a good idea to have an accountability group with whom you can discuss such matters. Make sure the people in the group are objective, loving, godly, wise, and above all, have your best interest at heart. This kind of group can help you evaluate the ideas, comments, and criticisms of others within your sphere of influence.

This article originally appeared in the March 2019 issue of The Grapevine, a publication of AEGA Ministries. Used with permission.

by Wayne A. Grudem

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 1

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 2

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 3

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 4

Oral Roberts, Expect A Miracle: My Life and Ministry (Thomas Nelson, 1995), 388 pages, ISBN 9780785274650.

There is something powerful about reading stories of lives God has used. Autobiographies never go out of date. While this was published in 1995, it has a vitality and ring of truth that grows with age. I like reading autobiographies, particularly when they are written by contemporaries that I knew or knew about.

Oral Roberts relates his beginnings, beginnings that were humble indeed. We learn that his sister Jewel spoke seven simple words to her brother when he was dying of Tuberculosis. “Oral, God is going to heal you.” Several days later Oral’s father knelt by his son’s bedside and prayed Oral into the Kingdom of God. Within days of his confession, Oral’s brother Elmer took Oral to a tent meeting in Ada, Oklahoma where evangelist Charles Moncey was preaching. That night Oral was healed and also called into the ministry—a ministry that so many of us have enjoyed. God brings His ministers to all kinds of places we do not know to reach people that we again do not know.

Oral received an audible call from God immediately before he was healed: “You are to take My healing power to your generation. You are to build Me a university and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit” (p. 32).

Oral’s book reminds us that there is a long distance to travel from the call to the result and he takes the reader on that trip in an engaging manner. I was challenged as I read of Oral’s struggles and his devotion to his Savior who called him. Successful people work hard, they stand against adversity from every direction and they often partner with God so that their lives make people expect miracles. I did not know that in his first healing crusade Oral Roberts faced a man who had a revolver in his hand and pulled the trigger only to miss our brother by 18 inches.

Oral soon began to recognize a warming in his right hand that came and went. When that feeling was present people got healed, and Roberts soon came to depend on that sign of God’s presence when preparing for his crusade services. We read of the healing of a deaf boy one night in a small church in Nowata, OK. I marvel at the visitations of a God who is so great that He can show up in a place named Nowata and change the destiny of a small child and never lose a moment on His throne. We are never fully prepared for Him to act until He does and then all we can do is marvel.

In July 1950 Oral Roberts possessed the largest tent available. It sat 12,000 people. Oral wrote “I wish I could describe to you the feelings that swept over me when I stood before the crowds, knowing that after I preached and extended the invitation for the unsaved to receive Christ, hundreds of very sick people were going to come before me, one by one, as I took on all their sicknesses with my faith in the living Christ” (pp. 103-104).

Oral Roberts had some great moments and some terrible difficult moments to live through as he gave his life to telling you and me about our God.

He closes his autobiography with his ten secrets of success. This chapter is perhaps the best of the entire book which I found moving and inspiring. I like Oral’s first principle: Remember that the message is far greater than the messenger. Indeed without the message, we would all be chaff blowing in the wind. We do thank our Heavenly Father for sending gifts to the body of Christ like Oral Roberts. In as much as he followed Jesus, let us emulate him. Surely the Lord has used him to impact his generation.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

Further reading:

Miracles supplement:  www.oralroberts.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/DOC_BIN/miracles_mag/2010/pdf/ORinsertWeb.pdf

Should we expect the Holy Spirit to work in powerful, miraculous ways in connection with the preaching of the gospel and the life of the Church today? This has been the claim of John Wimber and the Vineyard movement, and of others within what is called the “third wave” of renewal by the Holy Spirit.¹  Similar claims have been made for years by Christians within the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. But other evangelicals have differed with this claim, and have raised several objections. In this series, I want to consider some of the most frequent objections and propose some answers from Scripture.

1. Doesn’t Jesus say, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4)?²  Doesn’t this mean we should not seek miracles today—rather, we should look to “the sign of Jonah,” which means the resurrection of Christ, and emphasize that when we talk about miracles?³

The mistake made in this objection is a failure to look at the context and find whom Jesus was talking to. In the context of Matthew 16, it is the Pharisees and Sadducees who came, “and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1). Similarly, it was the hostile scribes and Pharisees who came in Matthew 12:38-45, the Pharisees who began to argue with him “to test him” in Mark 8:11-12, and skeptics who came “to test him” and seek a sign from heaven in Luke 11:16. (The only passage that doesn’t specify that the comment was directed against hostile unbelievers is Luke 11:29, but the parallel passage in Matthew 12:39-42 does specify that it was specifically the scribes and Pharisees against whom this word was directed.)

So in every instance the rebuke for seeking signs is addressed to hostile unbelievers. Jesus is rebuking Jewish leaders who had hard hearts and were simply seeking a pretext for criticizing Him. In no case are such rebukes addressed to genuine followers of Jesus who sought a miracle for physical healing or deliverance for themselves or others, either out of compassion for others or out of a desire to advance the gospel and see God’s name glorified. These warning verses, taken in the original contexts, apply to unbelievers, and therefore to use them to apply to genuine Christians is an illegitimate application. No New Testament passages warn against the use of miracles by genuine Christians.

It seems to me that the New Testament encourages us to believe God and seek answers to prayer in many ways, including miraculous answers to prayer. (See Acts 4:30; 1 Corinthians 14:1; Galatians 3:5 [implicitly], see also the entire pattern of gospel proclamation plus miraculous demonstration in the evangelism carried on in Acts 3:6, 12ff.; 4:29, 30; 5:12-16, 20, 21, 28, 42; 6:8 10; 8:4-7, 12; 9:17, 18 [cf. 22:13] 34, 35; 14:3, 8-10, 15ff.; 15:12, 36; 18:5, 11 [cf. 2 Corinthians 12:12, 1 Corinthians 2:4-5]; 19:8-12; compare Hebrews 2:4; James 5:13-18).