Wouldn’t it have been amazing to have
witnessed a miracle like Moses parting the Red
Sea, to have stood among the crowd of
thousands fed by Christ using only two fish
and five loaves of bread, or to have
experienced some similar miracle? Where are today’s jaw-dropping spectacles? Are epic
wonders only a thing of the past?
In his recent book Unanswered, a volume that was six years in the making and intends to
shed light on topics that have gone largely
unaddressed within today’s Church, apologist
and New Testament scholar Jeremiah Johnston
assures that, even in modern times, God is still
very much on the move when it comes to working miracles.
In fact, Johnston says Jesus is making
miraculous appearances to Muslims around the
world.
“Jesus is appearing to Muslims all over the
Middle Eastern world,” he told The Christian
Post. The Bible scholar, who wrote a
forthcoming book on the Islamic State terror
group, admitted “that makes some believers
uncomfortable — you know, Jesus appearing to someone. I remind them, ‘have you read
Acts Chapter 9 recently? Who did Jesus appear
to while he was on the road to Damascus? Saul
of Tarsus.’ We don’t need to put God in a box.
Believe you me, God can work apart from us.”
Although many of today’s miracles might not
unfold in quite the same manner or have the
same look as they did when Jesus walked the
Earth, the miraculous stories of triumph and
perseverance of followers of Christ are
occurring like never before, esspecially within the persecuted Church, says Johnston.
The pastor is not at all surprised by God’s
miraculous move within persecuted churches,
recalling a visit to China where he met with a
Christian missionary. The missionary and
affiliated Christian churches practiced their faith
in that country much like persecuted churches did in the book of Acts. In Communist China,
many Christians, if they wanted their churches
to survive, had to go underground.
“I was in China recently with a missionary who
is over 5,000 [other] missionaries in the
underground church. He looked at me in
Beijing and he said — to both my wife and
myself — ‘Jeremiah and Audrey,’ he said,
‘everything you read about in the book of Acts is happening in China right now. The Spirit of
God is at work mightily. Everything you read
about in the book of Acts — God is doing
today,'” he said.
There is a reason why many Christian Chinese
churches have had to go “underground.” Many
have become targets of the country’s
Communist regime.
Within China’s Zhejing province, for example,
the Chinese Communist Party aims to supress
the growth of organized religion.
As a result, the Communist Party launched a
campaign to remove crosses from Protestant
and Roman Catholic churches across the
province, citing that they are in violation of
zoning restrictions on building heights.
In one year and-a-half the government has
removed 1,200 crosses, much to the dismay of
the country’s large Christian population of 67
million, as documented by 2011 figures from
the Pew Research Center.
Of the country’s 67 million Christians, Pew
estimates that China has 10 million Catholics,
half of which belong to the state-sanctioned
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Millions
more Catholics go to secret churches to
worship. A government-approved Protestant Three-Self-Patriotic-Movement accounts for
another 23 million people, while 35 million
unregistered Protestants exercise their beliefs
underground.
While persecuted churches across the globe
seem to be full of God’s Spirit, Johnston feels
like a somewhat lackadaisical western church
has fallen asleep at the wheel.
“This winded, out of shape church of the West
can’t figure out if we want to share all the
counsel of God’s Word. I’m not surprised that
God doesn’t work as mightily in a church that’s
fallen asleep and been lulled asleep. … We need
our Church to be awakened, and we need to have a thinking faith to be awakened — where
we can see God do the miraculous and trust
Him to do that, and we see that reflected right
now in the persecuted Church.”
Pastor Johnston is confident that God is still
very much in the miracle-working business.
Christians simply need to open their eyes, he
says.
“There’s not a doubt there are miracles all
around us,” he told CP. “Sometimes, though,
we have our heads in the sand — we just don’t
see them. We don’t give God the glory for
them.”
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