Miracles accomplished through a handkerchief or apron belonging to Paul.

Acts 19:11-12

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

“Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.” Acts 19:11-12

In Ephesus, God did miracles through Paul to heal people of diseases and to cause evil spirits to leave them. God did these miracles to verify Paul’s message of Jesus Christ dying on the Cross, being resurrected from the grave, the promise of eternal life, and Christ’s authority to forgive sin. Reconciling to God by the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ is what the Gospel is all about. Miracles were performed in such a way that people would want to live for God by faith in Jesus Christ. They came for healings and returned home as Believers, not physical healers. Also, in those days, many believed that being incapacitated in the physical body was a sign that the person or the person’s parent had sinned. In that light, the physical healings meant that sin was forgiven.

Very importantly, the physical healings showed that faith in Jesus Christ was much more real and powerful than faith in the laws of Judaism. God was proving through His miracles that Salvation and the forgiveness of sin came by faith in Jesus, not through the letter of the law. People who witnessed the miracles, or were healed, were led to desire to live life in the Spirit and not by the laws of Judaism.

There was a time when Jesus forgave a crippled man of his sin but healing him physically was not something Jesus had initially intended to do. When the Jewish lawyers heard Jesus say, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” they thought within themselves, “This Man blasphemes!” Blaspheme was a very serious breach of the Jewish laws, and a person could be kicked out of the Jewish culture and even stoned to death. Jesus decided to heal the crippled man to show the lawyers that he indeed had the power to forgive sin. Jesus said to them, “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’?” No doubt, the Jewish lawyers felt that one was just as impossible as the other for a normal human being to do without the power of God. That is when Jesus said to the crippled man, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” and he did. Matthew 9:2-8

It was very unusual that people were being healed of diseases and that evil spirits left them by using a handkerchief or an apron. The people who took Paul’s handkerchief and brought it to the sick and those possessed by an evil spirit revered Paul that much. They saw Paul as having the power of God when they witnessed the other physical miracles that God performed through him. But they also associated the miracles with Jesus Christ, with the Gospel message that Paul was preaching. That is why God performed the healings through Paul’s handkerchief. It wasn’t the handkerchief that the people had faith in, their faith was in Paul as an instrument of God’s Spirit. In essence, by using Paul’s handkerchief, they were expressing their faith in the Living God, expressing their faith in the message Paul brought to them about Jesus Christ. They were learning to put their faith in Jesus Christ as the way to live for God, to have their sin forgiven, and to receive eternal life.

There is a very important reason why we have to turn our focus away from physical healings and to stay grounded in the message of the Cross. The beast that has power over physiology is able to do physical miracles. That beast has power over every cell of the human body. If we based our faith on physical healings, we would be misdirected to serve the beast that despises God, rejects Jesus Christ, and opposes the presence of the Holy Spirit. The beast is the same that has the power to give people what to speak, do, feel, and think. It gives life/breath to the image of the beast to speak by speaking and living through people as they are groomed to the mark, number, and name of the beast by what they are given to say and do. Click here for a post on the beast with power to do healings from Revelations 13:3. “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.” Revelation 13:3

Instead of focusing on physical miracles, focus on this, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11