Our text is Acts chapter five, verses 12 through 16. Beloved, this is God's word. Now there were many signs and wonders were regularly being done amongst the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's portico. None of the rest had dared to join them, but the people held them to high esteem. And more and more than ever, Believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, so that they even carried out the sick onto the streets, and they laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter would come by, at least a shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless the reading of your word, and I pray that you bless its hearing. We indeed know that through hearing and hearing the word of Christ comes faith. So Father, we come before you asking that you would use these words to build the faith of your people, and if there are those who hear these words and do not have faith, I pray, Father, that you would call them to faith through them. Father, I pray that you are glorified and honored, that you are praised and proclaimed, and that you would do this either through me or in spite of me. And this is my prayer in Jesus' name, amen. Signs and wonders. That is what this passage is about in a nutshell. I find it interesting as we get this little interlude, this little kind of summary, if you will, of what's going on in the life of this church in Jerusalem, that the first idea in this summary that it gives us is that this church is characterized by signs and wonders. Now, specifically we're told here what those signs and wonders are. That is that people are being healed. They're even bringing people out on cots and Peter's walking by them and the shadow of Peter falls on them and they're healed. And that ought to sound a lot to you like, the language of Jesus and people that the woman who had had the bleeding and her desperation that she just touched the hem of the garment of Christ and that she would be healed. Same language and should come up and bring up the same ideas in our minds when we see that kind of connection that is present there. But there's a little bit of a difference here. You'll notice that it says that everyone who is brought to Peter, the apostles, that everyone is healed. Every single one without exception. Now that's different than what you find in Jesus's ministry. You may remember the language of John 14 verse 12, where Jesus assures the apostles. that greater works will be done after he ascends to heaven and the Holy Spirit comes with them. Here we find fulfillment of that. None of the apostles are doing things greater than Jesus and they're not God. That was never what was meant to be understood by the language that Jesus used there. But what we're seeing fulfilled in that promise is that the greater has to do with the extent. the greater extent in terms of the way the gospel will go out to the nations. In this case, the greater extent with respect to the application of these signs and wonders. Now, There's a lot here in this text, but to really wrap our heads around what is going on and why it's important that Luke has brought this to our attention, this little summary here, is it's important to understand what signs and wonders are. And then when we understand what signs and wonders are, part of the question that we should be asking next Is art they still being done? Is this something that we should expect to be normative for the church today? It was certainly normative for the church shortly after Pentecost, but should we expect it to be normative today? Well, we have no idea how to answer that question unless we first understand what signs and wonders are, and then kind of work that through in terms of what we should expect when we look at the church today. All right, so let's tackle this question. And the idea of signs and wonders is as a phrase, as a phrase is something that we find throughout the scriptures. In fact, over 20 times, we find this phrase being used in the Bible. And more than that, if you kind of break up the two together, because for example, Jesus' miracles in the gospel of John are always referred to as signs. but I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. So just take the phrase signs and wonders 20 times in the Bible, nine times in the Old Testament, 11 times in the New Testament. What does that mean? Well, what's interesting is the first seven times this phrase is used in the Bible, in the Old Testament, all seven times without any exception, This phrase is used to refer to the plagues, God's judgment of plagues upon Egypt that took place during the time of the Exodus. What was the purpose of those 10 plagues? Well, ultimately they are God bringing the gods of Egypt into judgment or under his judgment. Some commentators, some authors on this kind of describe it as a showdown between God and all of these Egyptians gods. And God demonstrates in these plagues that he is the greatest and the most powerful of all of the gods. For example, the Egyptians worshiped the Nile. For them, it was the seed of life, but God turned the Nile into blood. And so the place where they looked to for life became a place of death and of blood. They worship many of the gods, like the cow, and they worship the frog, and they worship, you know, the alligator's supposed to keep the frog in check, and things along those lines, and what does God do? But he multiplies the frogs, and he multiplies the flies, and all things like that, that brings plagues upon both the things that the Egyptians worshiped, but also, again, the Egyptians themselves. They worshiped the sun god, Ra, or Amun-Ra. And God gave them darkness across the land, demonstrating that he could shut out even the light of their great, great sun god. They worshiped Pharaoh himself. And of course, God destroyed not only Pharaoh's firstborn, but then arguably Pharaoh when the flood came through. One of the things that I find very interesting about even this whole account is that if you go to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is their holy book, and you look up the language that is used to refer to the place that the Egyptians expected judgment to take place, That is a field that is marked by reeds. You know, those long reeds that take place or that live or grow along the Nile. And where is it that God brings judgment upon the Egyptian army? Well, it's the Red Sea. But if you read the Hebrew text, and we infer that it's the Red Sea because of location, and we call the Red Sea the Red Sea today, but if you read the Hebrew text, it's not called the Red Sea at all. It's called the Sea of Reeds. So God is delivering his people, protecting them from judgment and bringing and destroying the Egyptians, bringing them under judgment in the Sea of Reeds, a field of reeds, a place where the Egyptians expected to be vindicated. God demonstrating again that he was greater than all of the gods of Egypt. Now, there's also something that we need to take away from and apply because there's a principle of interpretation that goes something like this. The first time an idea is used in the scripture presents to us a kind of definitive use by which all of the other uses that are subsequent are interpreted. In other words, if you see it once here, and then you see it again a little bit later, the here gives you kind of a definition, kind of a basis by which you understand the second passage or the later passage. And we see that in lots and lots of instances, and this is one of those. Now, does that mean that signs and wonders, whenever we see it in the scriptures, refers to judgments and plagues? No. but remember what those judgments and plagues were meant to do. They were meant to demonstrate that God is the God of all creation. He is the God that is worthy of worship. He is the God that all of the other gods are underneath of in terms of power. The other gods mostly being demons or false gods. The goddess is the only one who is truly God in heaven. And in this particular case, Moses was his prophet. Hold on to that idea, because we see this idea now played out as we continue through this phraseology of signs and wonders. So where else do we see that language? In the Old Testament, we find it in two other places, like I said, nine times. Both of those places are in the book of Daniel. It's Daniel 4, verse 2, and Daniel 6, verse 27. Here's what's interesting. The first time, Daniel 4, 2, is in the context of God's deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, from the fiery furnace. In the second instance, 627, it's of God delivering Daniel from the lion's den. In both cases, what is that communicating? What is that a demonstration of? What are these signs and wonders doing? They are demonstrating that the God of heaven is greater than the king of Babylon, a king that was worshiped as God in the flesh. Same interpretation, same perfect, same idea in terms of reference there. God is delivering, and by the way, these people are his prophets. But it's a testimony that the God of Israel is who he says that he is, and he is the God that is worthy of praise. That's the nine uses of this phrase in the Old Testament. There's 11 in the New Testament. Four of those take place in the Book of Acts. Now I want to highlight something there. What's interesting to me is the last instance in the Book of Acts where this language, the signs and wonders takes place, is found in Acts 15. What's going on in Acts 15? We've talked about that as a church before. Acts 15 is the council of Jerusalem. Acts 15 is an instance in the history, it's kind of even a transition in the history of the church in terms of who is in leadership. The apostles are still alive at that point, except for James. But the apostles are still around as a body. But now in Acts 15, they've got questions to answer. The gospel is going out from Jerusalem and it's going out to the ends of the earth. That's what the book of Acts is about. This is the beginnings, if you will, of this process taking place. But now all these Gentiles are coming into the faith and they're asking the question, Do we need to require them to follow Jewish laws? Do these Gentiles need to now be circumcised and they need to follow the Jewish food laws? Do they need to practice all of the ceremonies that we as Jews practice? And how do we work that out? And it's not the apostles alone who figure out the question or the answer to the question. It's not. The apostles bring in the elders from the churches, the presbyters. from all of the churches all around, wherever churches have been planted. And everybody is gathered together in a council, this one in Jerusalem, to answer this practical question. But don't you see? There's a transition from the work of the apostles to the work of the elders in terms of leading the church. And with that transition, the emphasis is no longer on signs and wonders. Isn't that interesting in terms of answering the question of whether they're continuing or not. We'll come back to that question in just a minute. So four times they're used in the book of Acts. And in each of the four times in the book of Acts, they're used of the work that the apostles are doing in terms of building this church, both in Jerusalem and on, if you will, the mission field, as Paul is going out with his compatriots. Similarly, we also find this phrase used in Romans 15, 19 and second Corinthians 12, verse two. In both of those cases, it's a testimony, or Paul is writing as a testimony to say, look, I came in as an apostle, and I did these things. What's that point? What's the point he's making? It's the same point that we're talking about all along. That God is the God of the heavens. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, the Trinity, the Triune God. This Jesus that we're talking about, God of the heavens and we are his spokespersons. So signs and wonders, again, testifying to the reality of who God is and who those who are speaking for them happen to be. That's important. So there's six uses, six more uses that are in the New Testament and consistent with everything that we have seen in the first seven uses and really all of the uses thus far. Now there's a little bit of a change in the pace too, because three times in the New Testament, we find that this phrase being used a little bit differently. Those three times are in Matthew 24, 24. That's part of the Olivet Discourse, if you're kind of thinking that through. It's Mark 13.22, which is also Mark's parallel account there going on. So here we have Jesus talking about signs and wonders in the context of the Olivet Discourse. And then we find in 2 Thessalonians 2.9. And what are these things talking about? They're warnings. They're warnings that there are going to be false prophets and there are going to be false teachers. And how are these false teachers going to be marked? Well, they're going to be doing signs and wonders. We would call them counterfeit signs and wonders, but nevertheless, they will be doing signs and wonders. How does this tie in with demonstration that God is the God of Israel? Well, because they're counterfeit signs and wonders, they're giving a counterfeit message. They're saying, look at me. They're saying follow my leading and my God. They're saying, yeah, don't follow this biblical teaching. Don't follow what's understood by the church in terms of what the scriptures present and teach. But listen to me, because I can do mighty, mighty, mighty things. Okay, so the same message is going out, except in those three cases, The message is referring to people trying to deceive with these false signs and wonders, these counterfeit signs and wonders. We don't have to look very far to see that going on even in the world around us. We can look at Benny Hinn and some of the others who don't want to wave their hand and everybody falls down and now we're all healed. If that were the case, if that were the case, And why aren't these people going into the hospitals and waving their hand and everybody's gone and people respond, but wait a minute, everybody wasn't healed when Jesus was doing ministry, of course not. Jesus was demonstrating election in terms of who he was healing and what he was doing there. But remember what it is that is taking place with Peter. Everybody who was brought is healed without exception. So if this were a continuing thing in terms of apostolic authority and power and things along those lines, and then if were somebody like these faith healers to have that power, they should have the ability to heal everyone without exception, not just the dupes that they bring forward. There's an important contrast there to be said. As an important warning, that Christ and the Apostle Paul give us all in the context of these false teachers that are here to destroy and to break the church apart. So we now have nine uses in the Old Testament. We've got six uses in the New Testament consistent in terms of the apostles and the work of the apostles. We have three more. that we find talking about the anti-apostles, if you will. That gives us and brings us up to 18. Two more uses. In both cases, these two uses are fairly general. Hebrews chapter two, verse four, speaks about a general way in terms of the works of Jesus. In other words, there were testimonies that Jesus is God. Nothing inconsistent. and John 4 verse 48. It's kind of interesting how this works because here Jesus is rebuking the people from his hometown because they want to see signs and wonders and they won't believe him until they see signs and wonders even though they know that he's already done them in other places because they want a show. They want a circus to take place in their hometown. Huh. Signs and wonders. What is the meaning of a sign and wonder? What is the definition of signs and wonders? Here's a definition for you. Signs and wonders are those supernatural things which God does to proclaim that he is the God above all gods. And that there are those Namely, in the case of the New Testament, his apostles, in the case of the Old Testament, his prophets that serve him, that he has sent. Notice the elements there. They're supernatural things. They wouldn't be wonders to us if they weren't, but they're supernatural things, which God does to proclaim that he is the God of all gods and that Jesus, It's His Son incarnate. And that these apostles and the prophets in the Old Testament are His spokespersons. And the message that they are communicating is a message of truth to which we ought to listen. What's interesting, that's an awful lot. Like what preaching is supposed to do today. The goal of preaching. Preaching is about teaching, but it's not just a theology lesson, and I think we all agree on that. Preaching is about exhortation, right? Getting you to do some things or live in a way that is maybe different than is the comfortable norm, but it's not just about that. It's not just a motivational speech. It's about proclaiming. that God is the God of creation and that you must repent and believe lest you stay and face His wrath and are under His judgment. If we don't have the proclamation that God is who He says He is, that He is the God of the heavens, we don't have preaching taking place. This is a nice lesson. This is a nice motivational speech. It's the kind of stuff that ought to make us on a certain level tremble. It's the kind of stuff that ought to encourage us because we're reminded of the God that we serve and maybe we're weary, maybe we're broken down, maybe we've been beaten up for the faith that we have and we need to be reminded of that great truth. Maybe we're doubting our salvation. Maybe we're going through tough times and we're wondering, where is God during this? We need to be reminded of that. We need to be encouraged by that. Something else happens too. Those who don't want to believe, those who don't like the Christian message, those who don't want to humble themselves and repent of their sins, they're oftentimes pushed away. Oftentimes we see them exiting the life of the church for one reason or another, but oftentimes that's part of it. C.S. Lewis used to say that one of the greatest hurdles for somebody in terms of coming to faith in Jesus Christ was because if God is the God that he describes himself to be in the Bible, then we owe an obligation to him. and He can command us to do certain things and to live in a certain way that we don't want to do. And so the natural response to the gospel for many, Lewis would argue, is to draw away because they think that if they don't hear it, they can't be held responsible for submitting to Him, submitting to God. And isn't it interesting? As you go through the text this morning, we see the result of these signs and wonders really in the end of verse 12 and the beginning of verse 13. And so the end of verse 12, you find, and they were all together in Solomon's portico. Okay. That's a reference to the church. That's a reference to the believers. That's a reference to these multitudes that are coming together. And we've talked about Solomon's portico and where it was, and that Jesus had preached here too. We've talked about all that kind of stuff, but this is the church. This is a place where the church is gathering. They're all together. There's this really unusual statement in the beginning of verse 13. It says, none of the rest dared to join them. And that's not kind of a weird translation. That's a pretty good translation of what the text says. None of the rest. Well, who are the rest, Luke? Tell us. Kind of like to know. Well, the implication is just that. Those who aren't coming to faith. Those who aren't part of the church, those who aren't born again believers in Jesus Christ, who haven't had the Holy Spirit come and give them new life, these guys are not joining them. They're pulling away. There's a divide, there's a division that is taking place here that we are beginning to see. We still see it today. If we live in faith, if we walk a believing, you know, in the faith that we have, with a believing life. We strive to live righteously before the world people will pull away. That's the kind of thing that we see. That's what they saw in their early church as a result of signs and wonders. This is what we see in the church today as a result of preaching when preaching is faithfully declared. Huh, isn't that interesting? And so that brings us really to the question, what do we expect to be normative in the life of the church today? And I think I've already given you some hints in terms of what I do think the Bible teaches in terms of what we should expect to be normative. But this is an area where people debate. And I'm not going to tell you that this is a heretical debate. I think this is a debate that brothers can have in the faith. But this is the paradigm that you operate on in terms of whether you are accurate, I think, biblically faithful on one side, or biblically unfaithful on the other side. See, one side believes that, yes, we should continually see signs and wonders done in the life of the church. People like using big titles and big names, okay? People in that group call themselves continuous. And they believe that, yeah, some of these things are normative for the life of the church. They're not going crazy hog wild, that gets into heresy. But they do expect a certain degree of continuing supernatural works, healings, and things along those lines, especially. On the other side, there is a group that says no. It would say, look, look at Acts 15. We see a point of transition. The apostles are handing off the ministry to the elders, and all of a sudden, the signs and wonders aren't mentioned anymore. And what we should find as normative is the latter part of the book of Acts, where the emphasis is on preaching and the testimony of what God has done in my life or the life of his people. You see that in the letters of Paul. And you certainly see that in the Catholic epistles or the general epistles that we see going in from the book of Hebrews to the book of Jude. Emphasis again on truth, on preaching, on testimony. in terms of what God has done. So we see that. We see even here, the signs and wonders are being done by the hands of the apostles. The apostles eventually died. All died within the first century. The presbyters, the elders took the mantle that they left behind in their deaths for the continuing church. And thus the cessationist position, to use the fancy title as opposed to continuous position, says that these signs and wonders were for a special time in a specific place. Why? As a testimony that the God of the heavens who came down in the flesh of Jesus Christ is the true God of creation and we must repent and believe in him, lest we be condemned to eternal fire. declaring the gospel through preaching and teaching. But you might say, well, what if, wouldn't it be more effective if we had these signs and wonders still? And I wanna answer that, no. But I'm gonna draw your attention to 2 Peter 1.19 as part of that answer. Why are we going there? Well, 2 Peter, Peter is at the end of his life. typically understood to be in Rome. He's under arrest and he's awaiting his own execution. We can infer that from the language of the first part of this text. And then we see at the end of chapter one, he does and says some things that are pretty remarkable. He's reminiscing in this letter about a singular event in his life, and it's not the resurrection. It is the ascension of Christ upon the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter was there. Peter got to see Christ in His fullness of glory on that mountain. Peter, James, and John, three of them. They eventually saw Christ in His resurrection, but Peter, James, and John here on that Mount of Transfiguration got to see that, and they also got to hear the very voice of God speaking from heaven. Imagine for a minute what that must have been like. I mean, I don't mean to do a play on words here, but as a mountaintop experience, this tops them all. I can't think of anything in life that would be greater and more glorious and wonderful than to see the fully glorified Christ with, by the way, Moses and Elijah, glorified. and then hear the voice of God speaking from the heavens. It made an indelible mark on Peter, and we can tell it's indelible because that's the thing that he's reflecting about. And after talking about how wonderful that was, he turns to the church, if you will, in his letter. In verse 19, he says, but you have something that is more sure. More sure? You translate that as more reliable, more trustworthy. You have something that is more valuable than what I got to experience. And what is that? The written word through the prophets. And he goes on to talk about how that word was transmitted through the prophets and apostles. Do you see what he's saying there? He had an experience, and the experience was great. He got to see a sign of wonder, and that was great. But you know what? Our memories are not really good. As we grow older, our memories get distorted. Listen to a husband and wife sometime retell a story together of an event that they both were part of. Or go to a courtroom, and there's 10 witnesses of the same event, and this is a fairly short period of time. They all tell a little bit of a different story. And you go, oh, weren't you all there? It's interesting, many of you know that years gone by, back in my Domino's day, I was robbed at gunpoint. I walked out of the store, a guy put a gun to my head and said, we're going back inside, and we did. Shortly afterwards, the whole event probably took five minutes, and it took not that long for the police officers to get there, so less than an hour later, My driver and I, the only two present, were being questioned by the police officers in terms of what this guy looked like. It was amazing to me. And he and I both gave very different descriptions of what that guy looked like. We were focused on different things. I had the gun in my face. I was focused on that more than anything else. Our memories aren't perfect and they aren't good oftentimes. And our observations sometimes get distorted, especially over time. And when stories get told and passed down from one generation to the next, sometimes again, they're not as reliable. But we have the written word, which is reliable and something that we can trust. And that is better, Peter writes. than having the experience, seeing the signs and wonders. So if we have something that is better, why would we even begin to want that which is inferior? The apostles died. And with them, the signs and wonders were replaced with the written word, which is more valuable than any sign or wonder could ever be, it is more sure. Faith comes by hearing, not by seeing, we're told in the scriptures, and hearing by the word of Christ. This word is what we need to hear and we need to have proclaimed if we're going to have faith and grow faith. Does that mean that God no longer works at all in the life of believers? No, of course not. Does it mean that at all? Every time somebody is born again, God has done a work in their hearts to take them from spiritual death into spiritual life. That is a work of the hand of God. But he also governs all things according to his providence. Not so much the signs and wonders miracles, but God has ordained all things that come to pass. Ephesians 1.11. And thus he governs and works in our lives, but most oftentimes through indirect ways. This is a time when we look for healing. We look, praying to God, but we look to the doctors too, to be God's tools and instruments to that end. See the office of the apostle was meant to be a temporary office and those things, those supernatural things that went with it were meant to be temporary things. But the extent of course grows greater and greater and greater as the church goes out. One of the things that I am concerned about as a church today is that we don't trust the Word of God, that we're told won't come back void. That we don't trust the promise of the Holy Spirit to use the means ordained by God to build His church. Because we don't focus on preaching. We don't share our testimony with others. We oftentimes pass by opportunities when we're given opportunities to speak boldly about the great things that God has done. Folks, when we do that, when we don't follow through, we are essentially saying and betraying that we doubt the faithfulness of God, that He will fulfill those things that He has promised to fill. Don't be guilty of being unfaithful in that promise. Yes, some will be attracted and others will be repulsed. The rest will stay away. And by the way, even we're given a little bit definition there Who are the rest? Well, there's these people that are brought together in faith, verse 14. Okay, men and women given to the Lord through faith. They're the ones gathering to become part of the church. So the rest are those clearly who don't. We've gotten the miracles, all were healed. The text is before us. Let me just close with this. There will be people who will seek validation for their sins. And the way they do that is oftentimes by pressing you and trying to draw you into that. And when you don't go and fall into that, they will pull away. And these are not just the faceless masses. Many of these are people that we will love, that we will care about, that we have deep affection for, and it will break our hearts when that takes place. The old saying, the old adage, the misery lifts company is very true. Because if you follow them, you will end up in the same misery that they are in. And though you may be persecuted for a season, if that persecution is only them breaking away that friendship, recognize that it is far better to please God than to please man. That the ultimate reality is, God will bring all things into judgment both good and evil. The question is, where will you stand when you are gathered, if you will, before his judgment seats? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and know that we fall so, so terribly far short of the boldness of this early church. We don't preach as we should, We don't teach your word as we should. We don't share about the great things that you have done in history as we should. We don't confront sin as we should. As a result, the church doesn't grow as it should. Forgive us, Father. Set our feet upon a path that reflects the work of these early Christians and glorify yourself in that. Praise you in Jesus' name, amen.