This tape contains a seventh of a series of teachings on the Book of Acts by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truaux Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The teaching is entitled Signs and Wonders and covers the third chapter of Acts. We're in the Book of Acts and chapter three today. I want to read just the first paragraph of this, but I hope that we'll be able to take a quick overview of the whole chapter. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at that gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of those who entered the temple.

Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him with John and said, Look at us. And he fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them.

But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

And leaping up, he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

The day of Pentecost is just behind us. You need to bear that in mind, even though it's taken us a good long time to discuss various aspects of what it entailed. It A Christian community has begun to form, we were talking about that last time, under rather extraordinary circumstances, and it's growing daily.

Last line of the second chapter is the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. This burgeoning Christian community, this church, if you will, is still at this point very much conceived of as an element within Judaism. an expression of Judaism, even a sect of Judaism.

That's something I suspect we would find it very hard to think our ways back into. You know, a very strange never-never land where they're in the temple daily, it says, every day. They're going to worship.

This is before the day of Pentecost. It's also after the day of Pentecost until, in fact, the persecution really begins to hit, and that's still quite a ways down the road. They're a Christian community in the city of Jerusalem and yet they themselves, let alone everybody else, still conceives of them as Jews.

Jews who are very deeply aware of the fact that the Old Testament has now been fulfilled. That all of the great promises about Messiah have been fulfilled. Nobody else knows that.

Or perhaps they've heard about it but they don't yet believe it and yet here they are in and out of the temple every day hearing the words of the prayers, the liturgy, seeing the sacrifices being performed, and knowing that all that has already been superseded, and yet they have no other place of their own. They're still Jews within Judaism. I suspect we could not really identify fully with that.

Perhaps a Messianic Jew who was raised deeply embedded in Judaism might be able to approximate it, but I suspect most of us would find that very hard. For the moment, the heat is off, okay? The heat is off.

It was very intense. It centered on Jesus himself. They got rid of him, so they thought.

Now they got a bigger problem on their hands, but the heat is off for the moment. It's going to heat up again, all right? And I think that the apostles suspect that pretty well.

But for the moment, the heat is off. They're given freedom. In fact, it says they had favor with the people.

Praising God, verse 27 of chapter 2, praising God and having favor with all the people. We come to a time of signs and wonders. And if you want to give a title to this session, I'd call it simply Signs and Wonders.

Again, to look one more time at chapter 2, verse 43, Fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Let's just consider those two words for a second. The word wonder means exactly what it suggests.

A wonder ought to provoke wonder. It makes us wonder. All right?

That's what it literally means. It makes us wonder. What is going on?

There's a sense of awe, a sense of surprise, but more than that, it's a sense of forcing a question upon people. How do you account for this? That's what the word wonder really means.

It makes you wonder, okay? And sign, sign is literally the same word as miracle and is often translated miracle. Literal meaning of the word miracle is sign.

It points beyond itself. A sign, A miracle, by definition, is pointing away from itself to something else. Again, to a conclusion, if you will.

The wonder raises the question, how do you account for this? And the sign points you to the answer to that question. Here's how you account for it.

Here's the conclusion that you are to draw. And it's important that you bear that in mind. This is what we're talking about.

We're talking about signs and wonders, things which are pointing away from themselves. As wonderful as they are in and of themselves, you really miss the point if you get hung up on the sign. If you sit there admiring the sign, basking in the light of the sign.

No, it's supposed to point beyond itself to the Lord Jesus in whose name it's being performed. Okay? And to drawing a conclusion about Him.

Over in chapter 5, it says, again, verse 12, Now many signs, many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles. So we're going to be hearing about some of these, but by no means all. You need to understand that this is a time in which many such things are being done.

And we're just going to highlight, and Luke in his account is just going to highlight a few of the more notable ones, perhaps. If you're driving somewhere in your car, and perhaps you're going to a city that you haven't previously visited, and you're continually consulting your road map, and then all of a sudden you see hanging over the road a big sign you know you sense what is being said here suddenly you know you're on the right track you know suddenly it tells you where to take a turn when you come to that road sign you don't stop your car get out and erect a shrine around the sign say look at this marvelous sign and get a congregation together to it you don't do that We appreciate the sign, but its point is to direct you somewhere. All right?

Bear that in mind as we talk about these. These are signs and wonders, and they're pointing us to a conclusion. Every miracle, I think I could say, every healing miracle at least, both in the Gospels and elsewhere in the New Testament, every miracle of healing, by definition, then, has two elements to it.

One is the care for the person involved. All right? The love of God, the compassion of Jesus Christ.

If somebody gets healed, that's an expression of Jesus' care for that person. And that's the motivation by which his attention is arrested, and he ministers to the person. But the very fact that it's called a miracle, all right, a sign, means that it also has another dimension.

It's to point beyond the immediate moment to the larger question of who is this? How do you account for him? This is God come into our midst, and we're being led to a conclusion about him.

Okay, this particular miracle or sign or wonder then is a very simple one, very familiar one. Peter and John are going to pray. They're going to the temple, a day like all days, filled with those events which alter and illuminate our lives, right?

They're going to the temple. They're going at one of the appointed hours of prayer. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon.

This is one of the hours for a prayer meeting. They're going up to the temple, and we're told that they're going in by the gate, which is called Beautiful. And scholars are not sure which of those gates of the city is being referred to, because that was not the name usually used.

A lot of people think it was the Golden Gate, the great gate which is currently sealed, but which is prophesied will open when Messiah comes in in glory, and which, in fact, Jesus did go through on Palm Sunday. The Golden Gate was a gate of great beauty, and even today, when it catches the sunlight in the afternoon, it's absolutely spectacular, and it's called golden because it takes on that color. It may have been one of the other gates.

It's not important to the story. It's not important. They were going in through one of the gates, a beautiful gate, and the thing we have to bear in mind is that coming up to any of the gates, entering into the city of Jerusalem, you have dozens, perhaps scores, perhaps hundreds, of sick, infirm, lame, and beggars.

And if you go to Jerusalem today, you have exactly the same thing. All right? We're going to hear about one of them.

But it's important that you be very clearly aware. They're lining the streets, looking for handouts, looking for alms, looking for some sort of help. Okay, it was a very, very common phenomenon.

And the sick in particular, they're by multitude looking for a handout. Peter and John are on their way simply to pray. They're not thinking in any special way about the healing of the sick.

They're simply coming up to the temple to pray. And as they're coming, their attention is somehow arrested on this particular lame man. We're told he's lame since birth.

And every day, some of his friends carried him and laid him where he could beg for alms. You've got to understand that he's very well known. He's a resident of Jerusalem.

He's there every day. People who are in and out of the temple see him every day. He's very well known.

He's lame since birth. Why is it that their attention is drawn to this man out of all of the others who are also there with the same concern, the same interest? We're not told.

I'd love to give you an answer to that question, but there's no answer given. Something about this man, something was stirred in Peter. God somehow drew his attention to this man.

Now, you can read into that. There are other passages. Acts 14 and verse 8 tells about another healing that involves Paul.

And Paul, it says, seeing that the man, I think it was in Lystra, seeing that he had faith to be made well, said, stand up. How did he see that? I don't know.

It may be that somehow, supernaturally, as a word of wisdom from God, they're given the knowledge that this man has the faith to receive. But it doesn't say that. I'd love to reduce it to a formula for you.

And we could all go out and practice our healing gifts in that way. It doesn't say that. It just says their attention was arrested on this man.

I think back to John 5. Similar story at the pool of Bethesda involving Jesus himself. And again, one man is singled out.

There are multitudes laying around the pool of Bethesda because God typically did a work of healing with some frequency there. And the Jews understood that when the water was ruffled, there was angelic power ruffling the water. It was not just a natural occurrence.

It was something supernatural. And the first one into the water got healed. And so obviously there's a great multitude there looking for healing.

Why this one? And not the others, we're not told. Jesus just picked out one.

One man received healing at the Pool of Bethesda. And one man, on this particular day, received healing outside the gate. Beautiful.

Catherine Kuhlmann, who exercised a tremendous ministry of healing centered in the city of Pittsburgh, repeatedly said, I can reduce it to no formula or pattern. She said people come sometimes at great cost, great difficulty, great pain, great distance to come be part of these meetings, and they go away and they have not been healed. And sometimes others come in skeptical, even prepared to be sarcastic, having no faith whatsoever, and they are healed.

I can't reduce it to a formula. Neither can I. What is noteworthy about this particular man, and I simply call it to your attention, is that the one that God chose made such a spectacle of himself. Isn't that interesting?

If it were Jesus doing this healing directly, he would probably say, get up, pick up your bed, and carry it home, right? And inescapably, the guy would call attention to himself as he's pushing through the crowd with his bed on his back. But I just have the feeling that maybe Peter was a little bit nervous about doing that, didn't want to call too much attention to himself, you know, was rather grateful that the heat was off.

And so God picks a guy who goes cartwheeling through the prayer meeting, you know, leaping, dancing, screaming, shouting, praising God at the top of his lungs. it's very interesting isn't it when God does this healing mind you it's also interesting to bear in mind that the guy has been lame since birth alright it's not just a healing of his legs it's a healing of his inner ear he didn't have to learn how to creep and then crawl and then tentatively take a few steps hanging on to somebody he's dancing he's never danced before He's never walked before, and immediately his sense of balance is supernaturally restored. And you might spend some fun time just speculating on which of the gifts of the Spirit are in operation here.

Gift of wisdom, gift of knowledge, gift of faith, gift of healing, you know, on and on and on. They all get mixed up together. The man is not looking for healing.

He's looking for alms. has no expectation of getting healed this day. People come to Catherine Kuhlman's meeting, they're hoping they're going to get healed.

He's not hoping he's going to get healed, he's hoping he's going to get alms. As a matter of fact, somebody has quipped, he asked for alms and he got legs. Keep it up, I can stay as long as you can.

Peter looked at him something from God stirred Peter said I can't give you silver, gold I have no alms I'll give you what I have in the name of Jesus Christ get up i'm interested in what didn't happen i'm interested in what we don't read in this account there's no preparation for healing none that they were aware of nothing conscious on the part of either the man or peter and john you could say they were prepared in a general way and that's clear they were ready to be used of god but no specific agony to work themselves up into a state of readiness to be available to God to do a healing. They weren't even thinking about it. There was no preparation for healing.

There was no service for healing. They didn't put out a big sign and say, y'all come to a miracle service, you know. They had no group of people praying, you know, for a week beforehand.

There was no fasting for healing. There was no preaching or teaching about healing. Getting people all set and properly instructed so that they'd be ready to receive something from God.

There was none of this. There was no instruction to the man about how he was to receive his healing. Nothing.

No instruction about that. There's nothing to indicate that it was dependent upon his faith. Nothing.

Now, you can argue that in if you like, but you won't find it spelled out there. I'm interested they didn't instruct him to claim his healing they did not instruct him to confess his healing they didn't even pray for his healing that's the one that really rocks me they didn't pray for his healing they healed him and there's not a shred of doubt in their minds either it wasn't Peter and John sort of saying well let's see what happens if he doesn't get up in the name of Jesus Christ, get up. They reached out their hand, picked him up, and the guy's leaping and dancing, and probably the most surprised man in the city of Jerusalem.

I think this is important to us for at least three reasons. First of all, this is what they were told to do, part of the apostolic commission, and part of the commission that comes down to us today. is heal the sick.

They were not told. Jesus did not say, pray for, instruct about, conjole into believing, be sure to confess, and try to maintain your healing. He said, heal the sick.

Do it. And when the Holy Spirit came upon them in this way that we've been reading about and meditating upon, this is one of the things that happened, and it happened almost as a matter of course. There was a readiness to be used of God When he chose, and there was no agonizing about it, he said, heal the sick.

And when the sick got healed, they knew they were healed. And everybody else knew it, too. And they stayed healed.

There was no business about the symptoms coming back the next day. They got healed, and they stayed healed. And there was none of this, I'm confessing my healing, but it's just my symptoms that keep my legs tied in pretzels.

You know, there was none of that. Now, I'm saying that I know that some of you know what I'm talking about. There's an awful lot of funny business floating around in the Christian church in our generation.

And I don't know where that comes from. I don't find it in the scripture. There's nothing here that says to the guy, get up and walk.

Now, you've got to confess your healing because if you don't, you're going to be crippled again. There's none of that. He's healed.

He knows it. Everybody else knows it. It is unmistakably clear, and it doesn't go away.

When they healed the sick, they were healed. Now, mind you, and this is terribly important, they did so under and as the providence of God led them. They did not go out and heal all the sick all the time.

There are moments when there was a tremendous anointing and many, many, many sick got healed, but that was not always the case. You can read, when we get into chapter 5, the passage that I've already referred to, it speaks in that instance about all the sick being healed, but that was not always the case. That was a time of particular anointing and blessing, and we read about similar instances in the ministry of Jesus when all the people would come, all of them would get sick, but then there are other times when that did not happen.

One got healed, and all the rest continued to be sick. They moved under the sovereign anointing of God's Spirit. They allowed Him to say what to do, when to do it, and when they responded to that, the sick got healed and they stayed healed.

That's the first thing. I've experienced this in my own life and ministry and have seen it on a few occasions. It has not been the regular normative pattern.

I long for it to grow and become more frequent, I believe, in fact, that as God brings us into maturity, we're going to see more of that. As we go deeper into the last days, I believe there's going to be a greater pouring out of his spirit, and we're going to see more of that. But it's under and as the sovereign power of God dictates. And again, I don't believe that we can or that we even dare try to reduce it to a formula.

It's as God says. I have personally been in a prayer line, praying for people, asking God to meet their needs and suddenly have felt a moving of his spirit that I can no longer ask. I simply say, be healed, and the guy has been healed.

But that's been the exception to the rule thus far. I know when there is that from God, and when it's from God, it works and it sticks, and there's not a shred of doubt about it. Do you understand what I'm saying?

That leads into the second point, And I've already sort of hinted at it, but it seems to me that that kind of word to us is in such sharp contrast to so much of what's being said in some circles today. In some circles. There's much that's good, much that's good, that would encourage us to be bold to believe more exuberantly, more expectantly for God to do mighty things in our midst.

But there's so much, it really seems to me to be very unrelated to what we see in the New Testament itself. Malcolm Smith has suggested that so much of what purports to be faith teaching is in fact either existentialism on the one hand or Christian science on the other. Let me explain what that means.

Existentialism meaning not faith in the sovereign power of God but faith in faith. Faith in faith. that either we who are ministering or you who need the ministry have to somehow do our spiritual exercises to work ourselves up into a frenzy of belief.

If we just believe strongly enough, then we can manipulate God into doing what we want. That's really existentialism. It is a Christianized version of existentialism, but it really is.

It's the leap in the dark. It's the coercing of circumstances. is by virtue of my internal power.

Or Christian science, on the other hand, which is a denying of fact. And here we get into the confessing my healing, you know, when the facts are quite otherwise. Let me just suggest to you, this may seem harsh, but I'm being as gentle as I can.

Confessing what is not true neither glorifies God nor fools anybody else. God is a God of truth. God is a God of truth.

You don't see this guy laying around on his pallet for the next three weeks confessing that he's been healed when in fact his legs are still tied in knots. And yet we have this whole level of teaching about confessing your healing. You confess as true what God has genuinely done in you by all means.

but don't think you're going to coerce him to do something that he hasn't done by virtue of confessing untruth. That's just lying. That doesn't glorify God at all.

It's a big, big difference between faith and presumption. And we better learn to deal with that one. I recommend a book to you.

It's not in our bookstore, but it's on order, and you may find it somewhere else. It's a book by a man named Charles Farah called From the Pinnacle. you remember what Jesus was tempted to do was cast yourself down off the pinnacle because God has said he won't let you hurt yourself right and Jesus says who am I to tempt God think about that that's what he's really saying it is said you shall not tempt the Lord your God what is he saying a lot of people misinterpret that they understand that being a rebuke to Satan that Jesus is saying to Satan, I am the Lord your God, don't you tempt me.

That's not at all what Jesus is saying. It's a complete misreading of the passage. Jesus is saying, I, as an obedient man, am under the word of scripture which says to me, I shall not tempt the Lord my God.

Do you feel how different that is? If Jesus is under a word of scripture not to be presumptuous, What about us? So it's a very delicate balance, and we're just barely touching on it, but I commend you to do some hard, deep, prayerful searching of the Scriptures and find that biblical balance which would encourage us to be genuinely faithful, to dare to believe for mighty things, and yet would not cross over the line into the area of presumption.

So that's the second reason why all of this is important to us, is that it's in such sharp contrast to what's being taught in some circles today. The third reason is that this sign, as is true of signs generally, pointed beyond itself to the risen Christ. Notice what immediately happens.

Peter and John go on into the temple area, into the area of Solomon's portico, and this guy goes right along with him. He clings on to him, and he's leaping, and he's dancing, and he's singing, and he's praising God and calling a tremendous attention to himself. And Peter takes courage, seizes the opportunity, gives another sermon.

He preaches. Obviously, a tremendous crowd is gathering. Everybody knows this guy, okay?

He's suddenly been healed, and everybody knows him and knows what a terrible state he was in. You can imagine there's a huge crowd of people, and it's getting bigger every moment. And so Peter preaches to them.

And I'm interested that what he did not preach was a sermon on healing. He just barely alludes to the healing. As a matter of fact, if you look at his sermon carefully, you'll find exactly the same seven points in it as were in his earlier proclamation on the day of Pentecost.

What the prophets said, what Jesus did, what you did, what God did, what we are doing now, what you may do, and what the result will be. He preaches Christ. He preaches the victorious, risen Christ.

It is He who has done this act before you, but I'm not primarily interested in talking about this healing. I'll spring from it to a proclamation of the gospel itself. The sign points beyond itself.

That's what makes it a sign. The people wonder at it. That's what makes it a wonder.

Two things in conclusion. when he gets to the part about what jesus did in this sermon it's very interesting that he does not recount the earthly ministry of jesus what he does in this sermon is what jesus did is he healed this man this is the continuing ministry of the continuing jesus you remember how the book opens in the first book O Theophilus I told you about what Jesus began to do and teach right implication that in this book I'm telling you about what he's continuing to do and teach and that's exactly how Peter preaches do you see what's happened how could they avoid it okay do you see what's happened Jesus did this and that's in fulfillment of all that the prophets promised and it plugs right into the proclamation of the gospel which ends with a call to repentance and faith in him. And secondly, the final point I want us just to be aware of, the offer of forgiveness, the one we've just read, is here explicitly extended in the temple itself to Caiaphas, to Annas, to the whole Sanhedrin.

Can you just allow that to register in your imagination for a minute? Verse 17, he says, And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. Jesus says, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

As bad, as terrible, as horrific, as was this incredible miscarriage of justice and righteousness. I know that you acted in ignorance, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled. You put him to death, and God wove it into the pattern, and he fulfilled scripture and leads you then to the offer of salvation.

Most of them didn't receive that offer, but they could have. just think of how different the history might have been if on that day Caiaphas and Annas and the Sanhedrin were to hear the very word of God in what was being said and would have humbled themselves and repented of their complicity in the crucifixion of Jesus all would have been forgiven but that's not the way the story unfolds let's bow our heads Father thank you that your arm is not shortened. That your will to make broken bodies whole again would still move us to be available to you to do precisely that.

Lord, instruct us. These are deep things. the church for so long denied that you were still in the healing business lord we would be eager to believe you for healing for moving in mighty powerful ways and yet at the same time we would be cautious not to cross over that line into an area of presumption but to be led of your spirit rather than by any human formula.

It's your work. Thank you, Father, that in every instance where the apostles of old moved under the anointing of your spirit, you not only met the need of the moment but you pointed people to the victory of Christ. We would dare to ask you increase the signs and the wonders in our midst and that they might do precisely the same thing for your great namesake.

Amen.