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Eras of Miracles and Divine Interventionism
Where my wife and I are staying, we have waited at one spot four different times for someone to pick us up and every time there on the top of a short brick wall sat a tiny toy figure. Three different days and four rides the same toy person was there. I guessed it was a Star Wars figure. Looking more closely, it seemed a young woman in a Star Wars-like outfit. In what I know of the Star Wars story, it was probably a jedi and maybe the one the story calls “the last jedi.”
If you don’t know the Star Wars story, because you’ve seen none of it, good for you, but let me explain. In a fictional cosmos, the jedi are warriors with supernatural power, who fight for what is called the light side of the force as opposed to the dark side. This fiction hearkens to God on the light side and Satan on the dark side. According to the fiction, the force connotes to something like a pantheistic view of God in which he is not a person, but some kind of mystical power. The fiction speaks of an existence of God, albeit a false one. This supernaturalism is crucial to the explanation of everything that happens in Star Wars fiction.
In the Star Wars story, only a few characters possess supernatural power to use either for evil or for good. Those without that power find themselves often in need of the abilities or gifts of those special individuals. Over aeons of time, certain ones through the story uniquely, even more greatly tap into the light side or the dark side of this supernatural force. These individuals come along once in a very long time with very special significance and they are usually prophesied. The needy natural ones place their hope in the coming of those to deliver them.
Fictional prophet-like characters predict the coming of the few supernatural characters, very often just one, with very special power. These prophets receive revelations from the same supernatural power, which is apparently God, and they know what will happen in the future. The spread of these prophesies over a fictional cosmos results in its people looking for the coming of these superior, supernatural figures, which will change the course of history.
I write all this to say that in general people who know the Star Wars story accept eras of supernatural intervention in their fictional cosmos. It makes sense to them. They agree both with the existence of supernatural power that works through men and that once in a great while this same supernatural power raises up a prophesied person who can use the power. In other words, they accept eras of miracles. They recognize the continuity of a natural world accompanied by rare times, moments, periods, or ages of supernatural intervention.
In a fictional Star Wars world, the divine always works to maintain and sustain, but also intervenes in a unique way. An unprecedented person comes along, who is not normal. He is far from normal and no one has been seen like him in ages. The maintaining and sustaining are continuity. They are normative. The rare one, however, is not. This is discontinuity.
Scripture gives (see especially 2 Peter) as a major reason for apostasy, a departure from the faith and the truth, the scarcity of evidence of divine intervention. God gives every good thing. He always intervenes in a providential manner, His good graces seen everywhere and at all times. God also though intervenes at times in unique ways. Men say because of the sparsity of the latter, they can’t receive the Lord. He must show Himself more to their liking. I call these showings, crown performances. If God doesn’t bring them a crown performance, they have their excuse for not believing.
God has intervened in a special, unique, and miraculous way throughout history. However, this kind of dealing is far less frequent. The word “miracle” is most often the same Greek word translated “sign.” Something isn’t a sign if it is the same as anything else that occurs on an everyday basis.
Through scripture, you can see eras of miracles. They mark extraordinary times and people, and these occasions, which are very rare through history, make a unique point, one that stands out very much. Certain names are associated in the Bible with these eras, including Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles.
One figure stands out above all of those functioning with supernatural power in an era of miracles: the Lord Jesus Christ. If these operations were normal occurrences, they would not stand out, and neither would Jesus. Jesus must stand out and He does stand out. He will show Himself in even greater glory when He comes the second time and in fulfillment of further prophecy. He is the greatest figure in all of world history.
Main Reason God Intervenes on Earth in an Obvious Way: That We Know That He Is The Lord
Reading through the Bible twice this year, I just recently finished Ezekiel and I noticed these words as an emphasis in the book: “Ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.” I wondered how many times then it was in Ezekiel so I looked it up, and then I also wondered how many times it was in the Bible. I kept the search to “know that I am the Lord.” The words of that search just in Ezekiel are 63 times. “”Know that I am the Lord” is found 77 times in the whole Old Testament. It has to be an emphasis of the book of Ezekiel found so many times, and it is God Who is saying those words.
Here are some samples.
6:7, And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7:4, And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7:27, The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
11:10, Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
12:15-16, And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence; that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
12:20, And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
14:8, And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
15:7, And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.
23:49, And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25:5, 7, And I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couchingplace for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. . . . Behold, therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen; and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
25:11, And I will execute judgments upon Moab; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
25:17, And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
29:6, And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.
30:8, And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.
30:26, And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
33:29, Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.
35:4, I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
35:23, And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
39:6, And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
39:28 Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.
Those aren’t even half of the usages in the book of Ezekiel. I’m guessing that you didn’t read them. You got the gist of them after a few samples and stopped reading. This is typical, but maybe you should go back and read them. What you can see is that God does what is called in scripture “evil things,” which doesn’t mean “sinful,” but things of judgment, like pestilence, famine, war, and death, so that the people will “know that I am the LORD their God.”
I noticed that it isn’t only “evil things,” but also blessed ones such as the following example:
36:11, And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
That is a positive one, but I don’t think I saw another positive one of the 63 usages in Ezekiel. It does mean that God uses blessings or positive things so that we will know that He is the Lord, but He mainly uses negative ones, ones that hurt and deprive. Those get our attention better and we know it. God uses those. What does it produce? In rebels, it produces more anger and rebellion, and then God judges them more, destroys them usually. However, His purpose is that they would know that He was the Lord. That’s what He wants.
The way these above examples read is something I’ve often said and that is that pleasure whispers to us and pain screams at us. I don’t like pain. I don’t want pain. But I know that pain gets my attention more than pleasure. I almost don’t want to say it, because I’m saying something that will come about.
None of us should lose sight of the point though. God wants to be known as the LORD our God. That knowledge is more than just intellectual. It affects our wills. You can read that in these passages too. It’s the kind of knowledge that overcomes us and changes us. Our behavior changes, because when we know that, we act like we know it. This is what God wants from us. We should know it.
The title of this piece is that God intervenes on earth in an obvious way. If God wants us to know something, He shows us. How we see He shows us in Ezekiel is through these difficult circumstances and events. They get our attention. They make us think. We could avoid them if we would just take in the revelation of God through creation, conscience, and through His Word. God is sovereign, but He may not intervene in a noticeable way, but if He wants to be noticed, this is how He wants to be noticed, that He is the Lord our God.
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