Signs and Wonders

From Michael Horton:

You know, it's ironic to me that in our day, as in every day of decline and superstition throughout church history, people turn from God's miracles to their own. What do I mean by that? Well, once people stop believing that salvation is a miracle and begin thinking that it is simply the result of human decision and effort, before long they create substitute miracles in order to retain some sense of the supernatural. Then, when they deny that in the Word the Holy Spirit miraculously creates faith and repentance, they must seek their signs through leg-lengthening. And when they deny that in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper Christ is actually miraculously given, they seek their own revelations and their own signs and wonders.

Churches that follow the apostolic, Reformation faith are charismatic in the fullest sense of that term. That is, they believe that every service of Word and Sacrament is a time of signs and wonders. They eagerly anticipate--or, at least, should eagerly anticipate, the miraculous when they come to church, because God has promised that when we gather to worship and receive God's forgiveness, he will faithfully feed his flock in the wilderness. But we often become like the cynical generation of Israelites in the wilderness who, when God reaffirmed his promise to feed them, cried out, "What! Is the Lord going to spread out a banqueting table for us right here in the middle of the desert?" But that is precisely what God does. He is a wonder-working God who feeds us among the thorns and sand of our spiritual wasteland, when and where we are least expecting.

Read the entire article HERE.