What is the purpose of “ signs and wonders ” ?

What is the purpose of “signs and wonders”? Looking at Acts 5:12-16

Starting with Acts 4:29f • “Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” • Why did they pray this way? Looking at Acts 5:12-16

Consider that generation… • They KNEW that Jesus was risen • They were first-hand witnesses • They had the preaching of Peter, James, John, Paul…. Why did they need miracles? Looking at Acts 5:12-16

To help people come to saving faith • Read 5:12 • Consider the awe evoked by 5:1-11 • Fear, amazement… and now read v14 • There’s a DIVINE CONNECTION between preaching in power and healing… and conversion Looking at Acts 5:12-16

It’s the pattern of the early church • Read Acts. • 17 occasions where a miracle leads to salvation of large numbers • In Acts 2, 3, 4…look at 9:40,42. • Miracles bring people to Christ Looking at Acts 5:12-16

“But signs are not enough” • There is a reasonable objection • It is the WORD that changes your mind… it is your FAITH that saves you…. Away with all this razzmatazz. • The Word must be central, right? • Look at 1 Cor 1:22,23: “The Jews seek signs, but we preach…” • Matt 12:39 “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign.” • So was this generation evil? Looking at Acts 5:12-16

Is seeking signs wrong? • Seeking signs from God is wrong when the demand for more and more evidence comes from a resistant heart and simply covers up an unwillingness to believe… • But if you come to God with a heart aching with longing for vindication of his glory and the salvation of sinners, and that's why you long to see him stretch forth his hand to heal and do signs and wonders in the name of Jesus, then you are not evil. You are faithful to the promises of his word… Looking at Acts 5:12-16

For example… • Acts 14:3 says that Paul and Barnabas "remained a long time [in Iconium] speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." • This is utterly crucial: Signs and wonders are God's witness to his Word. They are not in competition with the Word. They are not against the Word. They are not over the Word. They are divine witnesses to the value and truth and necessity and centrality of the Word. Looking at Acts 5:12-16

So signs are not enough! • Signs and wonders are not the saving Word of grace; they are God's secondary testimony to the Word of his grace. Signs and wonders do not save. They are not the power of God unto salvation. —any more than music or art or drama or magic shows. • What changes the heart and saves the soul is the self-authenticating glory of Christ seen in the message of the gospel (2 Corinthians 3:18–4:6). Looking at Acts 5:12-16

But even if signs and wonders can't save the soul, they can shatter the shell of disinterest; they can shatter the shell of cynicism; they can shatter the shell of false religion. Like every other good witness to the Word of grace, they can help the fallen heart to fix its gaze on the gospel where the soul-saving, self-authenticating glory of the Lord shines. Looking at Acts 5:12-16

Seeking Signs and Wonders in Prayer Today • My purpose this morning has not been to defend the validity of signs and wonders for today. I have done that before, and will no doubt do it again. The purpose has been to show what their function was in the book of Acts and how that is no hindrance to our seeking them today, just like they were sought in Acts 4:30—as divine witnesses to the Word of God's grace. Looking at Acts 5:12-16

And I do believe God wants us to pray for them today. I close with a challenge from Martyn Lloyd-Jones. • “It is perfectly clear that in New Testament times, the gospel was authenticated in this way by signs, wonders and miracles of various characters and descriptions . . . Was it only meant to be true of the early church? . . . The Scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary—never! There is no such statement anywhere.” (The Sovereign Spirit, pp. 31–32) Looking at Acts 5:12-16

Lloyd-Jones believed in the steady-state, regular, ordinary ministry of the church. It has its blessing and its glory from the Lord. But I think he became increasingly disillusioned with business as usual toward the end of his 30 years of steady-state ministry at Westminster Chapel in London in 1965. Looking at Acts 5:12-16

“[We] can produce a number of converts, thank God for that, and that goes on regularly in evangelical churches every Sunday. But the need today is much too great for that. The need today is for an authentication of God, of the supernatural, of the spiritual, of the eternal, and this can only be answered by God graciously hearing our cry and shedding forth again his Spirit upon us and filling us as he kept filling the early church.” (Joy Unspeakable, p. 278) • “What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty, that will compel people to pay attention, and to look, and to listen . . . That is why I am urging you to pray for this. When God acts, he can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years.” (Revival, pp. 121–122). • Let’s pray for it! Looking at Acts 5:12-16

What is the purpose of “ signs and wonders ” ?