We are living in a skeptical age. Men say they no longer believe in miracles. Not only in heathendom is this said, but in Christendom, where the light of the gospel shines. There is only one more step to take in this unbelief—the repudiation of God Himself. This step will be taken shortly. MAN will deify himself in the son of perdition the Antichrist of Scripture (2 Thess. 2:3, 4). When this happens, no more place will be found for God and His Son. Remarkably, when this state of things comes about, men will believe in miracles once more. "Signs and lying wonders" will appear, and be credited. Hell produces its marvels as well as heaven. This was witnessed in Moses’ day, and it will be witnessed again in the day of Antichrist.
Infidelity, religious and otherwise, may carp at the records of our Lord's miracles, but the miracles were wrought, nevertheless. The fact that at least three of the gospels were published within a few years of our Lord's ascension, when falsehoods could easily have been disproved, is sufficient to establish their credibility, even on the most human principles. But when we take into account the majestic fact (which every reverent soul believes) that the Spirit of God is the author of the gospels, every query is hushed to rest.
But why were the miracles wrought? The Savior Himself tells us, the "works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me." John 5:36; 10:25.) They were thus graciously granted as aids to faith in His person and mission. Hence the rebuke to Philip, "Believe Me for the very works' sake." Hence, too, the Savior's lament in John 15:24: "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." Because the miracles were aids to faith they were all, with one exception, acts of mercy—acts which should have appealed to the sensibilities of all concerned as showing out the divine heart towards man.
It would be as foolish to over-state the value of miracles, as it is to affect contempt for them. Aids to faith must not be confounded with the ground of faith. Faith founded on miracles is of so little worth that the Savior, when surrounded by believers of this sort, refused to commit Himself unto them (John 2:23-25). True faith is founded on the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). Simon Magus was attracted by miracles, and proved a fraud; Sergius Paulus desired to hear the Word of God, and so became a true disciple (Acts 8:13; 13:7, 12). W. Fereday