The Miracles of Satan:
What William Tyndale Taught

By Ruth M Davis

 

Contents
Lying Miracles
First: A Little about William Tyndale
God’s Purposes in Lying Miracles
The Miracles of God Contrasted With the Miracles of Satan
-           The Miracles of God Move Us to Faith in His Word
-           Antichrist’s Miracles Pull Us from God’s Word
-           God’s Miracles Cease, Satan’s Never End
-           Miracles in the Bible
Application to My Own Experience

Lying Miracles

Anyone who has spent time in a Charismatic Church knows that miracles—that is, supernatural occurrences of different sorts—are really happening there, openly and publicly. Not all the stories about signs and wonders and ‘manifest presence’ are false.

At first I thought people who were slain in the spirit were faking it, until I myself was knocked off my feet. And I once saw a person who was miraculously healed: a Charismatic bishop who had suffered a debilitating spinal condition experienced healing that enabled him to jump and run. I have heard of other healings from credible sources. I also experienced the miracle of a sweet, supernatural spiritual presence that manifested when I met with “anointed” Charismatic leaders.

I never saw gold dust miracles, but did receive demonic empowerment directly myself—in fact, I became known as an up-and-coming prophetess after I came to faith. Such a babe in Christ as I, unfamiliar with God’s word, might have seemed easy prey to Satan. As I progressed in occult practice, it got so that at times I could touch people’s shoulders and heat seemed to pass from my fingertips down their backs. Once, in occult prayer with leaders in my Charismatic Church, where voices were raised to call down spiritual power, I was somehow overtaken by a spirit and spoke a prophecy over a woman who was a teacher in the Church. I prophesied that God would increase her gift, and she would become a great teacher. My voice sounded strangely masculine, and she swooned under the power of my anointing. All this I did ignorantly, in the name of Jesus, led astray by leaders in the Church. People I trusted and respected told me these things were signs that God was with us, and with me.

So there can be no doubt that miracles happen, and also that God’s own children can fall under the influence of Satanic spirits when they dabble in the occult. The new birth does not immediately and automatically grant some sort of immunity; nor does innocence. Nor does asking “in Jesus’ name” offer protection. Some say that if we ask for bread, the Lord will not give us a stone (Lu 11:11, M’t 7:9). But if it is in fact Satan whom we are asking for bread, because we do not ask in truth, but in error ¹, then we might expect a stone disguised as bread. Such disguised stones, including prophecies, visions, signs and wonders, are included in the term “lying miracles” as used by William Tyndale. Recently, several people have expressed an interest in knowing what Tyndale taught about the miracles of Satan. In response, I humbly offer this review.

First: A Little about William Tyndale

In the 16th century the Roman Catholic Church, walking in a black night of apostasy, boasted of miracles and prophecies from God. William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) was one of many men God raised up in those dark times to expose spiritual deception, to free the Scriptures from the lock-up of the powerful Church, and to teach the true sense of His word to nations mired in superstition and falsehood.

As readers may know, Tyndale was the first man to ever translate the New Testament from Greek into English. He also gave us much of our Old Testament. Bible historian A.S. Herbert noted that Tyndale’s translations, as contained in the Matthew Bible of 1537 (together with Miles Coverdales’ work) are the “real primary version of our English Bible”.² John Foxe called William Tyndale “God’s Apostle to England” because through his translation work he almost single-handedly brought God’s word to that country; copies of Tyndale’s 1526 New Testament, so small they could fit in the palm of a man’s hand, were smuggled into England in bales of cotton. John Foxe commented about Tyndale that he had been “singularly addicted to the Scriptures” since he was a lad. Tyndale certainly knew and understood God’s word.³

In 1528 Tyndale published The Obedience of a Christian Man. This book addressed many issues of the day, and was influential when it reached the hands of King Henry VIII. In The Obedience, Tyndale briefly discussed the miracles of Satan, why God permits them, and what they may reveal about us. I will review his teaching using the Penguin modern-spelling edition of the Obedience, which contains helpful notes by Professor David Daniell.⁴ When I quote from it, I will further modernize it for clarity’s sake (e.g. thou to you, add subheadings, etc.). I encourage everyone to acquire a copy of The Obedience, which is available online, whether to check my editing or, better yet, to learn more about Tyndale's theology. It is full of valuable teaching, though the old English makes it difficult in places.

Scripture quotations are from the Matthew Bible, and are also minimally modernized for clarity, as Tyndale would want. Where we have completed an acceptable draft of the applicable Scriptures for the New Matthew Bible (a project of Baruch House Publishing), I will quote from them; they incorporate verse numbers.

God’s Purposes in Lying Miracles

When Roman Catholics claimed miracles to show a divine anointing, Tyndale cautioned that it is to God’s word and God’s promises alone that we must look, not signs and wonders:

And when they cry “miracles, miracles”, remember that God has made an everlasting testament with us in Christ’s blood, against which we may receive no miracles—no, not even the preaching of Paul himself, according to his own teaching to the Galatians ⁵, nor yet the preaching of the angels of heaven. Therefore the miracles claimed either are not genuine, but feigned (as in the case of the miracle where Saint Peter hallowed Westminster ⁶), or if there are miracles that confirm doctrine contrary to God’s word, then they are done by the devil (as with the maids of Ipswich and of Kent ⁷).

Miracles done by the devil are to test us, whether we will cleave firmly to God’s word. And they are also to deceive those who have no love for the truth of God’s word and no desire to walk in his laws. ⁸

Here Tyndale has summarized God’s purposes in permitting lying miracles. First, He allows them to prove our faithfulness to His word. We are to be guided by nothing but the word of God. No signs and wonders should draw us aside. Second, Tyndale says miracles done by the devil have the very purpose of deceiving those who do not love truth. This he takes from 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12

And then will that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the Spirit of his mouth and will destroy with the appearance of his coming—even him whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all lying power, signs and wonders,and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness among those who perish because they did not receive the love of truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God will send them strong delusion, to believe lies—that all who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, might be damned.

Tyndale’s brief commentaries on these passages, from the Matthew Bible, were:

1)  Tyndale: “Lying miracles testify to a false faith.”

I understand this to mean that when the unrighteous who follow false teachings see or experience a miracle, that miracle is evidence to them—i.e. a testimony—which proves their imaginations to be true. They receive the miracle as confirmation of their faith. Indeed, it does confirm their faith; but because their faith is in lies, the miracle is a “lying miracle”.

2. Tyndale: “Where there is no love for truth, God lets false prophets slip in upon the people to deceive them.”

People who are stubbornly persistent and content to rest in deception reveal themselves to be under the judgement of God because they do not love truth; He therefore lets false prophets “slip in” to deceive them. By this they are proved; that is, their unfaithfulness and unbelief are proved. Understanding this can guide us if we are tempted to strive with deceived individuals. If God is not with them, there is nothing we can do except pray. I refer not to informing them, but coming into strife with them. (See 2Ti 3:13—…deceivers will grow worse and worse, while they deceive and are deceived themselves; and Titus 3:10—after the first and second admonition, avoid a man who is given to heresy.)

The “deceivableness” of the unrighteous (2Th 2:10) refers to the gullibility, or capacity for self-deception, of those who do not love truth. These take pleasure in unrighteousness; that is, they prefer that which is false over that which is true. God therefore sends them delusion so that by their belief in lies (2:11) they “might be damned” (2:12). It appears that the Day of Judgment is in view. Their disregard for truth and pleasure in unrighteousness will be evidence against them. The Greek translated “damned” is a form of the Greek verb krino, which Strong’s defines as “to distinguish, i.e. decide; by implication to try, condemn, punish”. When Tyndale wrote, the verb damn carried the sense of affirming as guilty, as well as of judging and condemning to punishment.

Moses warned the Israelites that God will test us by sending false prophets:

If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and that sign or wonder of which he spoke comes to pass, and then he says, “Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them”: do not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God tests you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your hearts and with all your souls. For you must walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments, and listen to his voice, and serve him, and cleave unto him. (De 13:1-4).

A sincere love fears God, keeps His commands, listens to His voice in His word, and will not follow another voice (Joh 10:5).

The Miracles of God Contrasted With the Miracles of Satan

In the Obedience, Tyndale further expounds on miracles as follows:

The Miracles of God Move Us to Faith in His Word

Antichrist will not only come with lying ceremonies and disguised with falsehood, but also with lying miracles and wonders, says Paul at 2 Thessalonians 2. All the true miracles that come from God are to move us to hear God’s word, and to establish our faith in God’s word, and to confirm the truth of God’s promises, so that we might believe them without doubting.

For God’s word, through faith, brings the Spirit into our hearts, and also life, as Christ says (Joh 6): the words I speak are spirit, and they are life. The word of God also purges us and cleanses us, as Christ says (Joh 15): you are clean by the means of the word. Paul says (1Ti 2): there is one God, one mediator (which is to say, advocate, intercessor, or maker of atonement) between God and man, and Peter says (Ac 4) that Christ Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all men. Nor is there health ⁹ in any other, nor yet any other name given to men by which we must be saved. So now it is Christ who is our peace, our redemption, our ransom for our sins, our righteousness, satisfaction—and all the promises of God are yea and Amen in him (2Co 1).
 
And we, for the great and infinite love that God has for us in Christ, love him in return, and love also his laws, and love one another. And from now on the things we do are not to atone for our sins, or to obtain heaven, but to help our neighbour and tame the flesh so we may grow perfect and strong in Christ, and return thanks to God for his mercy, and glorify his name.

Antichrist’s Miracles Pull Us from God’s Word

But the miracles of Antichrist are done for contrary purposes. They are done to pull you from the word of God, and from believing his promises, and from Christ. And they teach you to put your trust in a man, or in a ceremony where God’s word is not.

God’s Miracles Cease, Satan’s Never End

Once God’s word is believed and the faith is spread abroad, then the miracles of God cease. But the miracles of Antichrist, because they are worked by the devil to quench the faith, grow daily more and more. Nor will they cease until the world’s end among those who do not believe God’s word and promises.

Do you not see how in the old world God loosed and sent forth all the devils among the pagans or Gentiles? And how the demons worked miracles and spoke to them in every image? Even so will the devil work falsehood by one craft or another until the end of the world, among those who do not believe God’s word. For the judgment and damnation of a person who has no desire to hear the truth is to hear lies, and to be established and grounded therein through false miracles. And he who does not want to see truth is worthy to be blind; and he who bids the Spirit of God to go from him is worthy to be without him.

Miracles in the Bible

Paul, Peter, and all true Apostles preached Christ only. And the miracles did but confirm and establish their preaching and those everlasting promises and the eternal testament that God had made between man and him in Christ’s blood. And the miracles also testified that they were true servants of Christ. ¹⁰

Therefore the miracles of Satan serve, in the mysterious purposes of God, to confirm us in our faith, whatever it be, whether true or false. And we see that the miracles of the devil will never cease, and are used to turn men from God’s word and truth—and if there is faith, to quench it.

The miracles of God that cease do not include such things as answers to prayer, which Jesus promised repeatedly to all who have faith, and which I might call “private miracles” for the purpose of contrasting them with open and sensational miracles, such as those the Apostles performed and the devil mimics. Private miracles, such as God’s provision, His teaching by the Holy Spirit, His protection, His guidance, His sending angels to minister to the heirs of salvation, His making His home with those who love Him and obey His commands, healing, and His answering the prayers of those who ask in accordance with His will: all these are promised by many Scriptures; and they are, after all, miracles also.

Where Tyndale wrote about putting trust in ceremonies rather than in God’s word, he would have had in mind the incense burning and candle-lighting of Roman Catholic rituals, the hocus-pocus of their masses, superstitious prayers to saints, etc. Where he wrote of putting trust in men rather than God’s word, he would have been referring to things like trusting for forgiveness through confession in a priest’s ear, or accepting the word of a priest as if it were the very commandment of God instead of weighing all things against Scripture.

When Tyndale lived, the Roman Catholic Church was the major purveyor of false Christian ceremonies, and of course still offers them to lead men astray. But misleading and idolatrous ceremonies can assume different forms. Consider what trust Charismatics place in their ceremonies, such as soaking in the spirit to experience God instead of seeking Him in His word. And consider what faith they place in men by lining up to receive the Holy Spirit through them, by which they think to find communion with God, or healing, or sanctification—when all along it is through the Scriptures that God ministers life, and righteousness, and true sanctification. And the life that is in the word is the knowledge of God, and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and all that flows therefrom.

I have discussed the miracles of the so-called “Charismatic Church” here, but there can be no doubt that other organizations of Antichrist may boast of miracles that testify to false doctrine, foster superstition and unrighteousness, and teach people to trust in things that do not save. The words Tyndale wrote over 450 years ago remain true today, and will remain true until the world’s end.

Application to My Own Experience

As a new believer walking in charismatic deception, my own experiences with miracles were troubling and confusing. At times I was quite sure God was with my Church: He had to be, look at all the supernatural things that were happening. The sweetness of manifest presence called down by certain leaders was especially deceiving. And because I came to faith through an Alpha course at the Foursquare church, I had a naïve loyalty to, love for, and trust in the leaders there. But after spending time in the word, and growing in understanding, I began to realize their teaching was not biblical. Still, it was not easy to tear down the stronghold of faith in miracles. But thanks be to God, He gave me a love of the truth, continued to teach me, and eventually drew me out. In the end, I had to accept that the Church taught falsehood, even despite the promise of sound doctrine that was held out in their statement of faith. 

The lying nature of Satan’s miracles is well demonstrated by the prophecy I spoke over the Foursquare teacher (mentioned above), saying her gift of teaching would grow even stronger. I was definitely not speaking from my own mind, because as a result of Bible study, I had been coming to the conclusion that her doctrine was unbiblical, and she did not have a teaching gift. Further, I was concerned because Church leaders were not only permitting, but encouraging her to teach. But then my own prophecy indicated that my concern was unfounded. Had not the Lord, by causing me to speak this way, shown that my understanding of the Bible was wrong? or at least irrelevant? and that this woman was a good teacher? But of course it was not the Lord who spoke through me: it was a demon speaking lies to confirm us in deception, and to pull me from God’s word.¹¹

A love of truth will lead us to God’s word, but never-ending signs and wonders are Satan’s ploy to tempt us away. May the God of truth have mercy, and bless His eternal truth to our needy souls. Amen.

© R. Davis, December, 2009

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