The New Miracles
The law of correlation, in nature, finds every capacity filled and every craving fed, so that the bird’s wing and fish’s fin become prophecies of the atmosphere and the water, as the eye and ear imply sights and sounds.
The same law holds true in the spiritual world. The capacity and craving for the marvellous and wonderful is akin to adoration, which is a higher, holier form of admiration. God’s work of creation constantly appeals to the sense of the marvellous; and, ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes. His power and Godhead, have been clearly seen. Man’s own body has been fearfully and wonderfully made and constrains him to adore his Creator. And so it is in the kingdom of providence and grace. It needs but an open eye to see the working of a supernatural Power: the abundant proofs of the divine handiwork leave all observers “without excuse.”
It may seem without warrant and even irreverent to apply to the wonders wrought in our age the term ‘’miracles of missions.” But a miracle is no more or less than a wonder and a sign combined: — a wonder, for if not out of the common course it would attract no attention; a sign, for if not contrary to, or superior to, the working of natural causes, it would not show to man a higher Hand at work. With such limitations upon the term, we need not hesitate to affirm that modern missionary history furnishes an array of miracles which form the greatest treatise on apologetics ever given to the human race.
To those who deny or doubt a divine mind and method back of the stage of events, with its changes of scene and actors — to all who are sceptical as to a presence and power above man which goes with the gospel, the one sufficient answer is, missions to the heathen!
Proofs and examples of this have not been wanting in previous pages, as seen in the opening of doors, the calling of apostles, the raising up of converts who have proved both evangelists and martyrs. Through the whole study of the theme thus far the golden thread of a divine plan and performance has been traced. He who holds the Key of David, who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, has been seen unlocking the iron gates and bursting bolts and bars. The new Pentecosts reveal the Hand that alone can open the windows of heaven and pour out the blessing which comes only from above. A divine Voice alone could have called out labourers from an apathetic and unwilling Church, and sent them forth at the times and to the points most needful, and only He whose existence and purpose span the ages could have kept up this unbroken succession of workmen. God has been visiting his people by Voices and Visions, and training them for new service; and the harvests already reaped argue a divine husbandry. All our paths thus far have been through the territory where Jehovah has worked wonders. A Pillar of cloud and fire has gone before the missionary host — and has led them through deep waters on dry ground, past the Burning Bush, the quaking mount, the riven rock, the routed foe — and all the way a table has been set in the wilderness and man has eaten angels’ food.
But a large class of divine interpositions and wonder workings, not so far considered, demands special notice, if the Pleroma — the fulness of the presence and power of God in modern missions — is to be seen.
Two great miracles, one in the Old Testament and the other in the New, are the evident forecasts both of missionary methods and success, and we feel persuaded that their typical meaning has not been apprehended. One is the Fall of Jericho the other is the Feeding of the Five TJioiisand.
Everything about the Fall of Jericho hints its typical character. The preparation of the people, the circumcision at Gilgal and the rolling away of the reproach — the resumption of the long-neglected Passover Festival, and the courageous crossing of the Jordan — are conditions of the display of God’s power. Then Jeric;ho was the first stronghold which they encountered and stands for world conquest.
Note the circumstances: Exact obedience to the divine command, circumscribing the doomed city, marching round and round it, till thirteen circuits were accomplished with the “soles of their feet,” which was the prescribed law of occupation or taking possession by appropriation. How obviously the blowing of the trumpets represents the sevenfold proclamation of the gospel, the jubilee trump, announcing the acceptable year of the Lord; and what was that shout of victory before the walls fell, but the anticipation of faith counting things that are not as though they were, because God had promised! How plainly does the falling of those walls of the doomed city, before one blow was struck, teach us dependence, not on human might or power, but on the good Spirit of the Lord, and teach us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds! How inadequate human means are! God must interpose to do the real work and achieve the real victory Himself. He will not give His glory to another, and the consummation is all His own.
When, from this miracle which stands at the beginning of the conquest of Canaan, we turn to Pentecost, which strangely prefaces the beginning of gospel wars of conquest, we see Jericho interpreted. Peter’s sermon was the blowing of the rams’ horns, and the immediate and resistless prostration of the walls of Jewish bigotry, self-righteousness and hardheartedness, — was the divine razing to the ground of barriers to gospel entrance.
Now turn to the. great New Testament miracle, when the five loaves and two fishes fed the five thousand. Here is the second great lesson of obedience and dependence. A world is to be reached and every creature fed. Our force is inadequate. ’ * What are all these among so many? “Nevertheless, ‘’ give ye them to eat.” District the world, go to work on a definite plan of distribution of field and labourers — bring what you have of money and means. Bibles and workers, to Jesus for His blessing. Take no account of the inadequacy of your supplies, but do exactly as He bids and, with what you have, undertake for Him, expecting Him to multiply as you divide. How often is this lesson taught throughout God’s Word! the unwasting barrel of meal and flask of oil, the unexhausted cruise of the widow,* the divine independence of power and wealth and wisdom, of numbers and natural means, — all teach us that things impossible with men are possible with God.
What greater impulse could be imparted to world-wide missions than this — that the Church should recognize and realize that it is her salvation to be in straits! because the utter despair of self-sufiiciency teaches her that her sufficiency is of God. Our emergency is His opportunity. If the fewness of labourers drives us to pray the Lord of the harvest, that He will thrust forth labourers into His harvest-field. He will be heard, saying, “Separate Me Barnabas and Saul,” and Barnabas and Saul will be found ready. If our poverty of resources leads us to look to Him who alone can supply the ever recurring and increasing need; if the vast host and mighty power of our foes leads us to spread out our case before the Lord, and plead for His mig*
I. Kings xvii. 9-16; II. Kings iv. 1-6.
against this great company — success is assured. And, whenever in such spirit, the crises of the kingdom are met, He interposes!
The Acts of the Apostles records God’s sure working. Its pages flush with the glory, flash with the lightnings, and peal with thunders of the Eternal Throne. Christ’s promise became reality, for, as they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord wrought with and confirmed the word with signs following. It became plain even to foes that God was with them. His seal and sanction was set upon their words by works such as man alone never wrought. From Peter at Pentecost to Paul at Rome, every new chapter is a new challenge to faith, for it is a new display of divine power. Those tongues that flamed with Heaven’s message; those sharp sword-thrusts of the Spirit by which penitent sinners were pricked in their heart, and by which Stephen’s stoners were cut to the heart; the healing word whereby the cripple, lame from his mother’s womb, stood, and walked, and leaped; the prayers that shook the assembly-room at Jerusalem, and the foundations of the prison at Philippi; the judgments that struck the sorcerer blind and the liars dead; the healing virtue that invested with power Paul’s person and Peter’s shadow; the vivid visions of divine things, which made Stephen’s face shine as an angel’s, and Paul’s heart peaceful in shipwreck; the close contact with God that taught Philip where to go and what to do, and caught him away with sudden rapture; the personal appearances of Christ to the dying martyr and the living persecutor; Paul’s sudden blindness and as sudden restoration to sight; the raising of Dorcas at Lydda and Eutychus at Troas; Peter’s prophetic vision, and Agabus’ prophetic warning; the angel visit to Cornelius in the palace and to Peter in the prison; the Apostle’s deliverance from the sword of Herod, and the tyrant’s deliverance unto the sword of the avenging angel; the supernatural Voice that at Antioch separated Paul to missions, and at Corinth assured him of safety; the healing of the cripple at Lystra and the damsel at Philippi; the outpourings of the Spirit at Samaria, Cesarea, Ephesus as well as Jerusalem! who can walk along this highway of marvels without seeing everywhere the signs and tracks of God’s footsteps! We feel that the place is holy ground, the place of the Burning Bush, the Pillar of cloud and fire, the Angel of the Lord. We are hurried on amid a continual and continuous blaze of glory, for we no sooner emerge from the startling splendour of one miracle before we enter the precincts of another.
The whole study of the theme seems to bring us face to face with a divine Wonder- Worker, and the history is the pattern of His thought and plan wrought into the fabric of events. The new Pentecosts are His bestowments of blessing, as purely from God as the rain is from the heavens; the doors which open are His gifts of opportunity and facility; in the modern apostles and evangelists His appointment of spheres and service appears; in the control of His providence all creation is but a host — the armies that obey His bugle call; and in His gracious transformations the perpetual miracle is seen which attests the living God. Christ is on the throne, and at the same time on the battle-field. We seem to see the star of universal empire flashing on His breast, and the white horse of conquest makes the battle-field quake beneath His awful tread.
Have the days of miracles passed or are we still moving amid signs and wonders? If the age of missions does remind us of the Acts of the Apostles in its display of certain divine power, it matters little whether or not the mode of God’s working is the same. The fact not the form concerns us. The signs of the earlier age may have given place to the signs of a later age. God it; not poor in resources; His fund of force is not exhausted; He needs not to repeat Himself, nor does He; His infinite versatility assures infinite variety.
Moreover, it is probable that, for our new age, the signs and wonders wrought will be different, if they are to be equally convincing and conclusive, and equally suited to the present purpose of God and the present needs of man. In His kingdom of grace, as of the nature, the lower ever gives place to the higher. And, as Dr. Upham says: ‘*’ Through this invincible law, the lower physical miracles, of the time when our Lord was on earth, gave way before the coming of a higher order of spiritual miracles.” The former belonged to a receding dispensation; and in these things is the answer to the question: “Have miracles ceased?” Miracles have passed on from a lower to a higher sphere; from the seen to the unseen; from the world of nature to the world of spirit, where spiritual miracles are daily, hourly, wrought by the Holy Ghost, in answer to the prayer of faith — miracles far greater than those which typified and prophesied of the later and higher miracles. Even if the earlier signs do occasionally reappear, to clamour for them is to long for and hold fast what belongs to a finished age, instead of going onward and upward.
Careful research into the history of modern missions leaves on the mind this ineradicable impression and impress: that the facts, abundantly furnished and attested — facts as much above denial or doubt as the most certain events of history — simply defy explanation without admitting a divine factor. These facts are not few, scattered, exceptional, isolated; not done in a corner and lacking adequate authentic witness. They are conspicuous and confident; they move in such masses that the march of their host compels their recognition. In this conviction the most devout and acute observers of missionary history are agreed.
From these modern signs and wonders a. few representative examples may be selected, drawn from all varieties of sphere and experience. And the fciv will suffice; when testimony has confirmation from agreeing witnesses, the mere member of witnesses adds but little assurance. And, if competent testimony does not carry conviction, it is vain to pour more light upon any eye that only meets more illumination by closer contraction.
Mission history is both a demonstration and illustration of One who is present to preside and provide — a divine Director and Controller. There is an invisible Actor, whose will is wrought out in the changes of events and the control of inferior actors. These instances and evidences of His interposition sweep round the whole circle of the continents and the whole cycle of the ages. We may trace God’s intervention particularly in the following particulars:
We may see Him opening doors of access, and removing barriers at critical points and periods. In some cases there has been a sudden subsidence of barriers which can only be likened to the sinking of the land so as to permit the overflow of the sea, as in the Hawaiian Islands in 1819, and Papal France in 1870.
We may see Him preparing the work for the workman and the workman for the work, where such foresight was impossible to man; controlling invention and discovery so as to develop civilization according to a preconceived plan, and furnishing new instruments and agencies in a marked order of succession. We may see Him obviously overruling human mistakes and failures, frustrating the designs of enemies and persecutors; setting the limits and determining the direction of human lives and purposes.
We may watch Him answering prayer and turning great crises to which man was utterly unequal, and when there was despair of all human help.
We may, most of all, see God’s power indirectly modifying existing evils, and directly transforming both individuals and whole communities until, as there was subsidence of barriers, there is also an up lie aval of the entire social level.
All this is no human evolution: it is a divine revolutio7i. The strategy is that of a General-in-Chief whose eye commands at a glance the whole field of the world, and the whole history of man, and to whom the future is as present to view as the past. Amid the drift in the direction of a natural scepticism, accelerated by the influence of infidel opinion, nothing more restrains and corrects such tendencies than the unanswerable argument for a personal God supplied by the history of modern missions. He who carefully examines it feels that he treads on enchanted ground, whose mysteries compel a divine solution.
Of course, we are now dealing with matters whose very nature precludes mathematical proofs; not with the science of quantity, but of moral probability, which demands moral evidence. And, yet, practical certainty is attainable, for moral proofs are conclusive when properly used. For example, the law of coincidence pertains to a department of moral evidence. God confirms faith in His interpositions by bringing together occurrences which so correspond as to exhibit an intentional mutual fitness. Hence, for example, Prayer and its Answer often so fit each other, in time, place and exact correspondence, as to make certain that God and the praying soul are in contact. And this principle must be admitted if we are to recognize signs and wonders, not appealing to our senses but to our reason. The greatest signs of God’s presence in Apostolic days were found not in miracles addressing the eye and ear, but in the wonders of such coincidence. When the first fish that Peter caught contained in its mouth the exact sum necessary to pay the tribute due from Christ and himself, according to Christ’s word, the coincidence compelled conviction that it was no accident. When the tragedy of the crucifixion was attended by six hours of dense darkness, and an earthquake; and when the dying cry, ‘’ It is finished,” and the violent rending of the Temple Veil took place at the same instant, even a Roman centurion could not but say,” Truly this was the Son of God!” The Acts of the Apostles is full of these coincidences, which betray an invisible Hand guiding affairs.
Philip is led to go down to a desert road at the very time when the eunuch is inquiring as to the true faith, and Philip’s approach is at the very moment when he is reading aloud the very verse in prophecy which furnished the best text for a gospel sermon. While Peter had a vision on the housetop, the messengers from Cesarea were knocking at the gate to ask him to go to the Romans whom he had thought unclean; and while many are gathered praying for him, he is delivered from prison and the axe of Herod’s executioner. The death of Ananias and Sapphira coming at the instant of an act of lying and perjury against the Holy Spirit, showed that God’s judgment was at work; as Herod’s awful death at the very time of his accepting divine honours, made plain that God had smitten him. Paul’s conversion at the very climax of his triumph as persecutor, and when he was just entering Damascus, left no doubt that he had seen Jesus in the way. These are a few instances of that coincidence which establishes a probability amounting to practical certainty, that something more than the chance of accident had been controlling history. Thoughtless or uncandid persons often foolishly demand on moral subjects what they call, ‘’mathematical proofs,” forgetting that such proofs are in the nature of the case impossible, and we must look for quite another order of demonstration. But, when examined in a proper method and spirit, it will become scarcely less certain that God is, and that He is the actual governor in missionary history, than it is that two and two
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make four, or that the three angles of a triangle equal two right angles.
These “miracles of missions” are so numerous and various that we are again compelled to resort both to classification and selection. They fall naturally into two classes — raivdideoi providence and miracles of grace. The first includes all those interpositions of God which concern the control of individual lives, or governmental acts — which have to do with the general shaping of events, with protecting and providing for His own people, avenging their wrongs, destroying their foes, or raising up for them friends and helpers in crises. The miracles of grace include all direct or indirect influence of His word and Spirit in working transformation of personal character or popular life, and particularly in accomplishing great social revolutions which turn the world upside down and imply an energy superior to man.
When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch from their first mission tour, they rehearsed in the ears of the Church all that God had done with them and how He had opened the doors of faith unto the nations: and, as Paul went up to the first council at Jerusalem, he declared what things God had wrought by his ministry, and” when they heard that they glorified the Lord.” Mark the repeated emphasis upon tJie Lord’s doings — what He had done, how He had opened the doors, what He had wrought — that all glory might be His. There has never been a truly great missionary since Paul, who has not magnified the Power of God in the fruits of his work, — who has not known and felt that what results he has seen wrought were accountable for on no other philosophy — and this is the most conspicuous testimony unanimously borne by the most devout missionaries.
Just where such recognition of dependence on God and such confidence in His power have most abounded, the grandest demonstrations of His presence have been seen. Pastor Gossner, at sixty-three, stopped ringing the door-bell of millionaires and rang only the door-bell of heaven — and he put into the field one hundred missionaries who gathered 30,000 converts. Not what great things I have done or suffered for my Lord, but what great things the Lord has wrought for me, — that is the boast of the true missionary.