We have a distinct instance of the use of “Signs” to produce _preparation_. The seventy were sent working these Signs, “in every city unto which He Himself would come.” This preparation would consist, partly, in the drawing out from the mass those who were likely to profit. When our Lord Himself came, these latter would be eager to hear Him, and the great announcements He made would not strike them as altogether strange. The district over which these messengers were sent probably lay outside the country where our Lord’s ministry had been chiefly carried on, and was only visited by Him on this one occasion. This made it the more important that the right men, rightly prepared, should form His audience. His truths were not to fail of taking root, from want of the soil having been loosened beforehand. We shall see, over and over again, how careful our Lord is to prevent the opportunities He gives being lost. He never neglects or underrates the need of properly preparing men for receiving new truths: He employs the ordinary means for effecting this, and He would have the Children of Light be as wise in their generation, and as judicious in the use of such means, as the children of this world. Again, the display of the miracles roused some, the Scribes and Pharisees in particular, into active hostility—they watched the Signs to find ground for charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking. Priesthoods, occupied with the externals of their function are aghast at the assertion of a living and working God. The worldly are terrified also and with the terror that awakens fury. These classes answer to those servants in the parable who said, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Whenever a vital religion has been proclaimed it has found opponents of both characters. History witnesses to this, from the stoning of the prophets to the assaults on religionists in modern times. The miracles divided men into three great sections: there were those who were for Christ, and those who were against Him, and between these came a body who were not wholly indifferent or unaffected, but who quieted themselves with saying that such weighty matters were no business of theirs. This breaking up of men into friends and foes was a kind of preparation for the Apostles’ work. When men begin to take sides their minds cannot lie torpid: evil passion and selfishness mix with their doings, no doubt; but in the storm and stress men get to the bottom of their own hearts and find out their true selves; and men’s truest selves were wanted by Christ. So far we have spoken of miracles as means of rousing attention and drawing out from the mass those who had ears to hear. We will now consider them as practical illustrations accompanying the preaching, and (4) Setting forth the Kingdom of God. They shew not only how close this Kingdom is to us but they also convey visible lessons, to help men to conceive it aright.