The Wrong Instrument for the Test
The trap of using miracles as evidence of truth
There is nothing wrong with the question. The problem is the instrument being used to answer it.
The question is: is this from God? It is a necessary question, one the Scriptures themselves command us to ask. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1, NKJV). The command to test is clear, consistent across both Testaments, and issued specifically because not everything that presents itself as divine is divine. The question is right. What goes wrong is the choice of instrument — and specifically, the choice of miracle as the instrument that answers it.
Here is the problem with that choice. The same Scripture that commands the testing of spirits also makes clear that the ability to produce impressive supernatural events is not exclusive to God. Revelation 13:13-14 describes the agent of the final deception performing signs, “so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs” (NKJV). The signs are genuine in the sense that they occur. They are deceptive in the sense that the message they are endorsing is not the message of God. The fire comes down. The crowd is impressed. The deception advances.
Paul describes the same dynamic at the individual level in 2 Thessalonians 2:9: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (NKJV). The lying wonders are lying not because they fail to occur but because they occur in the service of a lie. They are real wonders. They are lying because of what they are vouching for. And the person who has made the occurrence of wonders their criterion for truth has no defense against them, because the wonders are occurring.
Moses gave Israel this diagnostic in Deuteronomy 13, in language specific enough to eliminate the escape route most people assume is available. “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass” (Deuteronomy 13:1-2, NKJV) — notice that: the sign comes to pass — and then the prophet uses that sign to lead you away from the commandments of God, you shall not listen. The verdict does not wait to see whether the sign was genuine. It was. The verdict goes immediately to the content of the message. Does the teaching align with the Word of God? If not, the accompanying miracle changes nothing.
This is a hard word for a generation that has made experience the primary authority over interpretation. The miracle produces an experience. The experience produces a feeling of validation. And the feeling of validation is treated as sufficient evidence that the source of the miracle is God. But the feeling of validation can be produced by something other than God, in exactly the same quality and quantity as a genuine encounter would produce it, because the entity capable of producing the miracle is also capable of producing the accompanying internal response. The enemy does not announce himself. He arrives looking, feeling, and performing like what you were hoping to encounter.
What this means is not that miracles cannot accompany genuine movements of God. They can and they do. What it means is that the miracle cannot function as the primary test of the movement’s source. The miracle is not evidence of the message. The message must be tested against the word. And the miracle — whatever it is, however impressive it is, however documented and witnessed and apparently inexplicable by natural means — cannot override that test. It can only be interpreted in light of it.
The instrument God provided for discernment is the law and the testimony. Anything else — including miracles — is the wrong tool for the task.
This is worth sitting with, because the pull toward miracles as verification is not a sign of weak faith. It is often a sign of genuine hunger for God. The person who wants to see Him move, who longs for tangible evidence of His presence, who is drawn to the reports of supernatural healing and dramatic deliverance, is not wrong to want God. They are using the wrong instrument to identify Him. And in a world where the counterfeits are operating at full strength, using the wrong instrument is not a minor methodological error. It is the specific vulnerability the counterfeits are designed to exploit.
The preparation for the period ahead begins by getting the instrument right. The word is the test. Every statement, every miracle, every impressive spiritual performance, must be brought to it. Not after the experience has already formed the conviction. Before.
Focus Verse: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:9 (NKJV)
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