Illusionist?

post 099

Is that all God is, a master illusionist?

From your perspective that is all he can be.
You are too sophisticated to believe in miracles.

“Show me a miracle and I will believe!” you cry.
But that is not true.

The illusionist performed his trick for the African village people, and then tried to educate them in the science of how it worked.
But they saw the trick first, and that proved all the more that he could do magic!
They saw with their eyes, but interpreted with their present knowledge and came to the wrong conclusion of what they had seen.
Now they wanted nothing further to do with him.
He was unable to show them the science and reality of what he was doing. (previous post)

If God showed you the miracle first, you would interpret what you see from your present lack of understanding, and your conclusion would be virtually unchangeable.
After all, you had just experienced it! nobody is going to talk you out of that!
Not even God himself, the one who performed it for you.

If the illusionist wanted the tribesmen to understand the concept behind the trick, he would not show them the illusion first. He would first need to get them to know who he is. Being already so different from them, he would need to build their trust through familiarity. Then walk them through the steps of the illusion broken down into understandable steps without them knowing the end result.
Finally, at the end of the training, it might actually dawn on them that the understandable steps lead to an illusion. And they would smile with wise understanding.

* * *

God is more than an illusionist.
God has understanding of our reality far beyond what our science has learned.
Jesus knows how to walk on water. Jesus knows how to ascend into heaven in the clouds.
He knows how to raise the dead and heal disease.
This is not illusion, this is not magic. This is the use of reality in a way we don’t understand.

The Jews are a race of people able to accept God’s ability to perform miracles and understand the point behind them. And so, God shows them miracles.
They have a whole other set of problems we will not get into here, but understanding the concept and purpose of miracles is not among them.

But as Gentiles, we do not understand such concepts. And so, for our own sake, God does not show us direct miracles, instead he hides them in freaks of nature, weird circumstances, anything that will allow us to get His desired result without us getting all weirded out and derailed.

Again, our example of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar.

Nebuchadnezzar was shown many very direct and amazing miracles and accepted them as proof of God.
Belshazzar? Only the one at the end, which made sure he knew that God was the one who had judged him. And even that happened while he was drunk, so he still had room to wonder just what he had seen. Daniel 2-6

So what is it that we don’t get?

Miracles are for the purpose of validating the reality of God,
But we see miracles for themselves, wanting to learn more about them and ignoring entirely the God who did them. Our mentality wants to know why and how.
This is not a bad thing, just the way it is, and the reason why we do not see direct miracles.

* * * * * * *

II Kings 6:15-17 “And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! How shall we do?
And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”