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"‘A prophet is not without
honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives
and in his own household.’" And He could do no miracle
there (Nazareth) except that He laid His hands on a few
sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their
unbelief." Mark 6:4-6
When Jesus visited His hometown of Nazareth He was not
received as a Prophet or as the Messiah. Matthew 13
tells us that the people there were hindered by the fact
that they knew Jesus and His family and had seen Him
grow up from childhood. They just couldn’t believe that
He was a great man of God, and certainly stumbled over
the notion that He was the Son of God. To further
complicate the issue, Jesus’ brothers and sisters also
did not regard Him as a great man of God. James and Jude
did not believe until He rose from the dead.
By our text, we see that Jesus was limited in what
miracles He could do because of their unbelief. To be
unable to perform miracles merely because of the
unfaithful there begs to be examined and explained.
This man Jesus existed as God from all eternity and had
spoken the worlds and everything in them into existence
by His divine power. As God, He upholds and controls the
entire universe and beyond. He didn’t need the faith of
His disciples when He calmed the sea or when He fed the
thousands with a little bread and a few fish, and He
didn’t need their faith when He rose from the dead. The
power was there, so what was limiting Him?
I think the answer is - He could have performed any
miracle He wanted but it would not have accomplished one
of the main purposes for miracles - to cause people to
praise God and bring glory to Him.
Miracles are also designed to build people’s faith in
God, which only works if they receive Him as a man of
God. Where people do not receive a person as a man of
God there is always the danger that any miracle he does
will be credited to Satan and not to God. So instead of
bringing glory to God, the Lord and the Holy Spirit is
blasphemed. This actually happened to Him in another
city, -"All the crowds were
amazed, and were saying, ‘This man cannot be the Son of
David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard this, they
said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the
ruler of the demons." (Matt.12)
Since the citizens of Nazareth were already offended in
the claims Jesus was making, they certainly would not
have received Him as being sent from God. I believe that
this is what limited Jesus in His hometown.
We rightly covet the power to heal. We want God to
confirm us, the ministry, and even His own existence by
miracles, but
it is not always wise.
To the right people it will bring glory to God, but to
the wrong people it will be an opportunity for the
devil. To one group it will confirm the Word you speak,
but the wrong group will turn it into a sign of demonic
activity.
You may think that if God gave you the power to walk
into a hospital or nursing home and heal all the sick
the world would listen to you as you preach the Gospel,
but as many miracles as Jesus did only 120 believers
were there on Pentecost.
There were far more who attributed His works to the
devil than to God. I have seen many miracles and I’m
always ready to speak and believe in faith - I expect
them. - But ultimately, it’s God’s Work and it’s His
call who He chooses to deliver and heal and when.
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