They said therefore unto Him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see and believe Thee? What dost Thou work? John 6:30
One man went alone into a cave in Arabia and spent considerable time there. When he came out, he claimed to have received messages from the angel Gabriel. Because this man could neither read nor write, he had others write down the messages he claimed to have received in the cave. Those messages make up the bulk of what is now called the Koran, so so-called holy book of Islam. Did Mohamed actually receive revelations in that cave? We don’t know. Was it Gabriel who appeared to him there? We do know the answer to that one. Gabriel, as an angel of God, could and would tell only the truth, and Koran is riddled with lies, distortions, and blasphemies. We can only imagine who might have appeared to Mohammed in that cave, if anybody actually did. We can only judge the result, which was a religion of hatred, brutality, and repression based on a cold, cruel, and vengeful god called Allah. How different the life and words of the Lord Jesus, publicly proclaimed and carefully reported by godly men, with the result of salvation freely offered by a loving and caring God.
Our text tells of the Jews seeking a sign, and questioning Jesus about His work. Unlike Mohammed, Jesus, who was literate, did not leave the account of His life, death, and message to any mysterious circumstances. Everything He did was open and in full sight of His followers and His critics. The only exception was the three-hour darkness as He hung on the cross, a scene so terrible that no human eye could view it. So we have the work of the Lord Jesus presented for those who doubted and complained. We have His miraculous birth, His wonderful teaching, His amazing miracles, His infinite compassion, His vicarious death, and his glorious resurrection, all presented through the pens of the Gospel writers, who were guided by the Holy Spirit. There can be no doubt of His work to those who receive His Word.
Two thousand years have flowed through time since the critics asked Jesus for a sign. For those two thousand years, the Word of God has stood clear and plain in its revelation of Jesus Christ in all He is and has done. For most of those two thousand years, much of humanity has accepted, at least at face value, the Bible as the Word of God. We live in a time when the Bible is doubted, questioned, rejected, and even condemned. Mankind is tossing aside the evidence that would lead people to believe on Jesus Christ. The minority who believe the evidence is growing smaller. And the sceptics are mocking us.
That God has revealed His Son to us is a great miracle and a wonderful blessing. Because we believe, we appreciate His work, and will forever. -Jim MacIntosh