“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the poor have good news announced to them. AND BY THE WAY, YOUR HEAD WILL BE CUT OFF AND YOU WILL BE MARTYRED. -Matthew 11:4-5

Jesus didn’t tell John the last part that’s in all-caps even though He knew what was in John’s future. It would have been far too terrifying!

The reality is that the same Jesus who performed amazing miracles, and made sure that they were reported back to John the Baptist, did not step in to prevent John’s imprisonment or the gruesome death of having John’s head cut off and displayed on a silver platter.

Not everyone gets the miracle, not everyone gets the healing, not everyone gets freedom from unjust suffering.

James Is Put To Death

“About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. This took place during the Passover celebration. Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.” -Acts 12:1-4

James was the first Apostle to be martryed. GOD DID NOT INTERVENE TO SPARE HIS LIFE.
The Apostle Peter was arrested next and thrown into prison, but before he could be put on trial God sent an angel to miraculously rescue him!

Why didn’t God rescue both of them?

Why did God allow John the Baptist and the Apostle James to be killed and yet He rescued Peter supernaturally by sending an angel?

This is the lesson that the Signs and Wonders Movement needs to understand- Not everyone gets the miracle. Some go through suffering for being in the will of God.

It’s hard to imagine anyone with more faith than John the Baptist. He lived a solitary life in the desert until he appeared with his firey message of repentance.

John was the first person listed in the Bible to express his faith in Jesus. God gave the Baptist a sign to show him that Jesus was the Messiah and John immediately went out and started telling people about Jesus.

I myself did not know Him, but the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. -John 1:33-34

But John’s preaching of righteousness eventually got him in trouble with people in high places.

Not one to speak in generalities, John called out the lifestyle choices of King Herod’s family. It ended up costing him his life.

For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. -Mark 6:18

Before they killed him they had put him in prison and things were looking very bad for John. He was hearing of the miraculous things that Jesus had been doing and yet John was rotting away in prison.

John had to be asking himself the hard questions…

If Jesus is the Messiah why am I rotting in prison? This is not how it’s supposed to work out!
I saw the Spirit come down from Heaven upon Jesus. I was so sure He was THE ONE. Why hasn’t He come to visit me in prison?
Other people seem to be getting good news. Why are things so bad for me?

Undoubtedly shaken, John sends some of his disciples to go to Jesus and ask Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus had his disciples report back to John all the amazing things he was doing that were so miraculous in nature- even to the point of raising people from the dead- but Jesus never told them to tell John, “I will do the same thing for you”.

The fact is, Jesus didn’t do the same things for John the Baptist as He did for many other people.

John needed a miracle to be let out of prison.
John needed a miracle so that they wouldn’t chop off his head.
When they killed John and put his head on a platter, John needed a miracle to be raised from the dead!

JOHN DIDN’T GET ANY OF THOSE THINGS.

John suffered a horrible death and Jesus never raised John from the dead the way He later did with Lazarus.

Why not?

The answer is simple.

Every miraculous thing that Jesus did was always predicated on the will of God.

The fact that Jesus does miraculous things or is capable of doing miraculous things is not a guarantee that in every future situation He will act in the same way by doing the same thing. Failure to acknowledge this basic truth has led to great doctrinal error in the Signs and Wonders Movement when it comes to the area of miracles and healing.

Does God Guarantee Miracles?

GOD PARTED THE RED SEA ONE TIME.

He’s completely capable of parting it again, but has He?

The walls of Jericho came down when the people of God let out a shout.

So when the rams’ horns sounded, the people shouted. When they heard the blast of the horn, the people gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. Then all the people charged straight into the city and captured it. -Joshua 6:20

As far as I know that’s never happened again. It worked great for them, but nobody today is employing this as a military strategy!

I am quite certain that if God wanted to part the Red Sea today or have walls come crashing down by a shout it would absolutely happen again. Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” and so there’s no reason to believe that He can’t do the same thing today as He’s done before. Nevertheless, unless God initiates a thing it’s doomed to failure.

God’s the one who told them to march around the walls of Jericho and to shout.

And the LORD said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor. March around the city… -Joshua 6:2

If someone from the Israeli camp had dreamed up the idea in their own head and convinced the company of believers to try it out, the walls never would have come crashing down!

What does real faith look like?

My pastor was telling the miraculous story of the birth of one of his children. The doctors were giving him and his wife two options and neither of them were good. As he tells it, “faith rose up in his heart”, so he called upon God, and stood in faith, and his child was born healthy.

I believe the operative word here is “faith rose up in his heart”. The Holy Spirit gave him faith for his particular situation and a miracle happened.

What this pastor experienced was GOD GIVEN FAITH. This is not the same as picking a promise out of The Bible and just hoping!

I’ve experienced this kind of God-given faith in my own life. I was holding my mother in my arms waiting for an ambulance to arrive while she was gasping for breath. She was very close to death when I heard God tell me that she was not going to die at that time and I had nothing to worry about. As soon as He spoke to me it was as if the entire room flooded with peace. I reassured her she wasn’t going to die. As far as I was concerned it was a fact. When Medics arrived they could barely get a reading for her blood pressure, but she lived just as the Lord said she would.

The voice of God brings absolute unshakeable faith.

I wasn’t trying to make myself believe something (as is so often the case with what we often call “faith”). I knew positively that she would continue to live because God told me so at that very moment.

The true stories in The Bible are given as examples to inspire faith in our hearts to call out upon God. How God decides to answer our prayers is completely up to Him.

The stories of healings and miraculous events in The Bible are not given to us as a guarantee that God will do the exact same thing in our situation.

John 20:31 tell us one of the reasons that miracles are recorded in the Bible.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. -John 20:31

Miracles were not recorded in the Bible to tell us that Jesus will do exactly the same thing in our situation. They were written down so that we may believe that He is the Son of God and may have eternal life through faith in Him.

A closer look at the life of John the Baptist

In the beginning of his ministry John the Baptist knew with great certainty that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah. His testimony about this is absolutely clear.

I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” -John 1:33

John had absolutely no doubt about who Jesus was. But later on, after John was thrown into prison and was rotting there, doubts began to enter his mind. His faith is shaken and he needs some reassurance.

Meanwhile John heard in prison about the works of Christ, and he sent his disciples to ask Him, “Are You the One who was to come, or should we look for someone else?” -Matthew 11:2

Now notice how Jesus responds to John’s question.

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of Me.” -Matthew 11:4-6

Jesus wants John to know that He’s working miracles and doing wonders. He wants to affirm the fact that He is indeed the Christ. But He doesn’t have them tell John, “Don’t worry John, I’ll do the same for you. I’m going to break you out of your prison cell!” No, instead He makes a point of saying, “Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of Me.”

In other words, He’s saying, “I know this is hard for you, but don’t let your suffering shake your faith and cause you to fall away from Me! You will be blessed because you put your trust in Me.”

John was facing the most critical situation in his life. He was never going to get out of prison alive. But Jesus did not have them tell John about all of His miracles so that John could believe that he would get one too. John the Baptist was told about the miracles that Jesus performed in order to strengthen his faith that Jesus was in fact the Son of God, and therefore to not lose heart in whatever suffering he would have to face. The miracles were not reported back to John as some kind of promise that John would be able to escape his situation.

Not everyone who finds himself in a dire situation gets a miracle! Daniel was thrown into a fiery furnace and lived to tell about it. John the Baptist was thrown into prison and had his head chopped off!

In Hebrews 11 we are given a long list of people who did mighty exploits by faith. God answered their faith by supernatural intervention and many of them escaped certain death! But in the same chapter we also read this…

Others were tortured and refused their release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised. -Hebrews 11:35

The ones who suffered and were tormented and went through tremendous agony were commended for their faith just as much as the ones who received miraculous intervention.

We love to tell the stories about the heroes of the faith who escaped death, but how often do you hear about the ones who don’t get the miracle but trusted God anyway?

“They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword.”

The Word of God tells us in Hebrews they were sawn in two because of their faith– Not because they lacked faith, but rather, IT WAS EVIDENCE OF THEIR FAITH.

It would be nice if everyone escaped all suffering. It would be nice if everyone got the miracle. But that is not what the Word of God teaches on this subject.

We do God no honor when we exaggerate the truth. I believe in signs and wonders because I believe in a supernatural God. I believe the Word of God and it tells me He is a God of miracles. Nevertheless, there are no guarantees in the Word of God that any one of us is going to be given a miracle in our particular situation that allows us to escape the suffering that we face. That’s a reality that many in the Signs and Wonders Movement refuse to accept.

I hope this short article will bring to light God’s truth concerning this subject. It was not a lack of faith on the part of John the Baptist that caused him to have his head cut off. In fact, it was quite the opposite. John was a preacher of righteousness and it led to his death. He proved his faith by enduring to the end.

“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” – Matthew 24:13