A Biblical History of Sign Gifts #2

What are the marks that God has given His people today in the church to look for, for the men that should be leading the people of God?

Is it pointing to signs and wonders, or is it something else? We're so glad you've joined us on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and today as Don continues in his ministry of teaching God's people God's Word, we'll move further in our series titled The Holy Spirit Today, with part two of a message called A Biblical History of Sign Gifts. Last time Don looked at Old Testament patterns of miraculous signs and then began examining New Testament patterns. He'll be picking up there today as he shows us more of how God used these miraculous wonders to verify His spokesmen at the time. So friend, have your Bible handy and let's join Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit. Look at John chapter 10.

The Jews put His identity directly in question. In verse 24, they gathered around Him and were saying to Him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me. There is a validity to My words as shown by the works that I have done in My Father's name. You don't believe, verse 26, because you're not of My sheep, but the signs have vindicated My claim to divine authority in everything that I say. And then finally in verse 33, the Jews were ready to stone Him. Jesus said, why do you want to stone Me? Verse 32, which of My good works are you going to stone Me for? And the Jews answered Him in verse 33, for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself out to be God. He says, they understood His words, you're claiming to be full deity. That's blasphemy. And Jesus, in response, points to the works that He had done.

Look at verse 37. If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.

He says you are drawing the wrong conclusion when you accuse Me of blasphemy. The works that I do vindicate My claim to be who I am. If you won't take My word for it, look at the miraculous signs and wonders that have been done at My hand and realize that I am telling you the truth. I am God incarnate. I am the Son of God. I am, John 14 verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me. Now, beloved, if anyone else had come to us and said those staggering words that are so familiar to us from John 14 verse 6, here is a man who by visible appearance was just a man, and this man, true, 100 percent man, the man Jesus Christ, says I'm the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you want to go to heaven, you have to come through Me. If you try to go around Me, you will be lost in your sins, you will be judged and condemned eternally because I'm the only way.

Well, that's a staggering claim for anyone to make. What distinguished Jesus was, He had backed up that claim with works that no one else could do, and those works attested to the reality of His claim. Peter understood this in Acts chapter 2 verse 22. Turn to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 2 verse 22. He says, men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst. He says, you saw this, God attested to His words by powerful works that no one else could do. This man, verse 23, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Now, the men read on there and you see that the audience was pierced.

Oh my goodness. We just crucified the Messiah. What hope is there for us? We killed our own Messiah. We crucified Him. Peter, what do we do? He says, repent.

Repent and turn to Christ. The thing that Peter pointed to to remind them of the authority of Christ were the signs and wonders and miracles that God had done in and through Christ that vindicated every claim that He made to divine authority, every claim that He made to divine essence. And now as we're reading it in Acts chapter 2, the ultimate capstone miracle had taken place and the resurrection verified in a final climactic way that everything that Christ had said was true. And now the risen Lord and He is declared by the apostles to be Lord, God, and King, the one to whom all men must repent of sin and come to Him by faith alone in order to be saved from their sins. Apart from that, there is no salvation. Apart from that, you are all miserably lost with no hope of eternal life. The signs attested to Christ.

They vindicated the claim. And in going back now, as I promised to do, go back to the end of John chapter 20. What does this mean for us today? What does this mean for you that are here? Maybe you're new to Christianity, you're new, you've never heard things like this before.

What does it all mean to you as a sinner now realizing that you are separated from God? What does it mean to you? John chapter 20 verse 30 says this, therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. He says, look, I've just given you a sampling.

I've given you a few. Jesus did so many other things in the presence of witnesses that I could have mentioned but didn't, but what I've written here is sufficient for this purpose to fulfill the reason I wrote this gospel. Verse 31, these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and the believing you may have life in His name. The Gospel of John records in narrative fashion these miracles that Jesus performed. They vindicated His claim to be the way, the truth, and the life, and John says, now that you have this gospel in your hands, let me tell you why it was all said. It was all said so that you would believe that Jesus truly is the Son of God, that you would respond to Him in repentant believing faith so that you could be saved from your sins. In other words, he says, you have in writing here a record which is more than sufficient for you to believe in Christ. The truth has been established for you in a way that is conclusive and to which you are now accountable. He said, I wrote these things that you would believe.

Wow. Signs and wonders designed to promote an effect on the human mind in the time that says, I have no alternative but to believe the words that are being spoken by this spokesman by God. Moses, Elijah, culminating in Christ himself. His ministry attested by signs, miracles, and wonders that no one else could do indicating, watch it, beloved, a supernatural intervention from outside the natural world beyond natural power to show that God was acting, that God was speaking, and therefore the words of His spokesman were to be believed and obeyed. That's the point of signs and wonders. The primary purpose was not simply to relieve physical suffering in a time and space realm. If that was the point, then we're kind of wasting our time because eventually all men die because it's appointed for all men to die and then after that face judgment. It wasn't simply an act of mercy to an individual who was suffering. It was that, but there was a greater purpose at stake in what Christ did. The miracles were to vindicate His claim to be the Son of God and to compel people to understand that salvation is found only in Him. You must understand that, beloved, the attesting purpose of these signs on the Messiah. Now the apostles, as we saw last time, performed miracles with the same attesting purpose. Let me remind you of one verse among the dozen or so that we read last time. Second Corinthians chapter 12 verse 12, the apostle Paul says, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles. And so these personally appointed legal representatives of Christ went out preaching in His name. How were men to know in the first century that what they said was to be believed and to be obeyed?

Notice how repeatedly I join that together. You believe those words and you obey them. If you don't obey them, you don't truly believe them.

How were they to know? Paul says, I came to you holding the office of an apostle and I vindicated my claim by the signs and wonders that I did in your midst. Therefore, you should not be questioning Paul saying in the first century to the Corinthian church, you have all of the proof that you need. I have been authenticated before you because I did the signs of a true apostle in your midst. You are eyewitnesses of these things.

Now, beloved, that's just a survey. There's more that we could have said about this, I understand. But you look at Moses, you look at Elijah, you look at Christ, you look at the apostles and what you see is that at every key point, at every revelatory episode that was taking place, God was using signs and wonders to vindicate these claims to be agents of revelation to him. They had a purpose.

They had a reason for these things to occur. My friend Tom Pennington said this and I quote, he said, the miraculous gifts that accompanied the apostles were intended to confirm that they were God's genuine instrument of revelation, just as they had been with Moses, with the Old Testament prophets, Elijah and Elisha, and with Jesus himself, end quote. There's a continuity in biblical times, in biblical history, I'm emphasizing that.

We're in a different age now. The apostles are gone, but in the course of biblical history, God used these miraculous signs to authenticate his spokesman. Now, the presupposition, the unspoken assumption that today's so-called workers of signs and wonders want you to believe is that God is authenticating his spokesman today in the exact same way so that they do staged events in order to vindicate their so-called claim to be a spokesman for God as well. And the assumption is that there's continuity to today from the biblical history of the signs that would show that they also are spokesmen for God in the same way. They would never really articulate it that way, but that's what they're trying to do.

They give you a puff of smoke and some loud booms, they knock a couple of people over down at the front in front of the pulpit, and you're supposed to say, oh, the work of God, and therefore I must believe and follow this man. That's not the way it works today, beloved. It is obvious as you read Scripture, as you study these things all the way through, that it is not the same today as it was back then, and that the means of vindicating who God's true spokesmen are today is now done differently than through signs and wonders. We'll explain this more in future weeks. Here's what I want you to see, is that God never intended signs and wonders to be the final and ongoing pattern by which his spokesman would be vindicated.

We must understand that we're in a different realm now. What are the qualifications, what are the marks for spiritual leadership today, according to the Bible? What are the marks that God has given his people today in the church to look for, for the men that should be leading the people of God?

Is it pointing to signs and wonders, or is it something else? Well, look at 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3.

What are the qualifications of an elder? It would have been so simple if signs and wonders were supposed to be the enduring mark of spiritual leadership, it would be so simple for Paul to have said that here. But he points to something completely different. In 1 Timothy chapter 3, a book that is designed to help us know how we are to conduct ourselves in the household of God, which is the church of the living God. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. I realize I'm spending a couple of tops here, but look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. Paul writes to Timothy as an apostle with the authority of an apostle whose words are to be believed and obeyed. He says in verse 14, I'm writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Okay, let's take a breath here.

Let's step back. Paul says, I'm writing to tell you how things are to operate in the church after my departure. Paul was a man marked by signs and wonders that authenticated him as a spokesman of God, right? We've seen that again and again, but when it comes looking forward to how things are to function in the church with the true people of God, how are the spokes those who speak for God, not in a revelatory sense, but how are spiritual leaders to be identified? He has just said that.

Just prior to what I read in verses 14 and 15, he described this in chapter 3 verse 1. He says it's a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it's a fine work he desires to do.

An overseer then must do signs, wonders, and miracles just like the apostles did to verify his claim to spiritual authority. Is that what it says? Answer me. Is that what it says? No, that is not what it says. This is not. The signs and wonders are no longer the mark of verified spiritual leadership.

It's a different standard now. The signs and wonders passed with the apostolic office. There is no longer new revelation being given because the apostles are gone. Instead, spiritual leadership in the church is recognized by matters of character and ability and having been tested by time. Look at verse 2. An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? And not a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. Verse 7, and he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Beloved, I intended this to be a separate message and I'll probably still preach it down the road soon, in a few weeks. But you need to see that God, through the apostle Paul, Paul, an authorized representative of Jesus Christ, said, here are the marks of spiritual leadership going forward in the church of God. If anyone was in a position to emphasize that true spiritual leadership going forward after the apostolic era would be verified by signs and wonders, Paul would have said it right here. He said, you've got to look for a guy who can do the signs just like Moses, just like Elijah, just like Jesus and just like me.

He doesn't say that. It's obvious that a change has taken place. And now spiritual authority, spiritual leadership does not give new revelation because that ended with the apostles, but spiritual leadership is recognized by different criteria, recognized by character proven over time, recognized by ability in teaching the Word of God proven over time, recognized by matters of character that have been tested in daily life within a family and within life in the world. That is now the new identifying mark of spiritual leadership.

And the fact that a guy can fake signs, prophecies, and wonders is no reason to follow him. We're looking for different qualifications within the church now because the pattern has changed, because the sign gifts are over, and now there is a new mark that God has given to his people to recognize the men that they should follow. In Titus chapter 1, you see the same thing being laid out again. Paul tells Titus, I left you in Crete so that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. What do you look for as your appointing elders?

Titus would want to know. Paul goes on to explain in verse 6, and he gives a parallel summary much like the one in 1 Timothy 3. If any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe not accused of dissipation or rebellion, the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, and on and on it goes. The teaching element represented in verse 9, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. The Spirit of God works in a man over time to establish him, does it in the context of the body of Christ and the body of believers, and that's how a man is verified. He's verified by multiple witnesses who can attest to his character and ability over time, not because he can get up and make smoke appear out of a machine on a platform. And so, this is the idea.

Here's the point for today, here's the point for now. The biblical history of sign gifts shows us that God used these miraculous wonders to verify his spokesman, but he limited it to the apostles. The end point was the apostles, as shown by the fact that you cannot replicate the apostolic qualifications now that Jesus is in heaven.

There are no direct physical eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection. There are not people doing the same kinds of signs and wonders that verified an apostle in the first century. God by his wisdom, by his design, has now delivered us into something else where he has stated plainly in his revealed, inspired, inerrant, authoritative word where spiritual leadership comes from to the people of God throughout the world going forward.

It's examined in matters of character and teaching over time rather than from the signs and wonders. So we ask the question, well, that's how they did it back in the Bible. How did they know back then? Signs and wonders.

How do you know what now? A man who has these kinds of character qualities that holds to and explains and defends the final revealed doctrine contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. This is spiritual leadership as defined by Scripture itself. And so we learn, we realize that we have to look for different qualifying signs for spiritual leaders today than that which God used back in biblical times.

And if you understand that and can make that distinction hold in your mind, you will not be attracted to the false stuff that predominates in this day and age. And so that's why it's so important for us to come to God's Word, to consider it carefully, and to exercise discernment in accordance with New Testament principles. Well as Pastor Don Green has reminded us today, the identifying characteristics of Christ followers and leaders today are very different from those of old. We point to and highlight the completed work of Christ as detailed in Scripture.

His work and that of his uniquely appointed apostles were attested to by miraculous signs and wonders. Well next time, Don will have more to say about the finality of the apostles as we move further into our series, The Holy Spirit Today, here on The Truth Pulpit. Don't miss a moment. Right now Don's back here in studio with some closing words.

Hi friend. As we close today, I just want to make something available to you. You know, as you listen to these radio broadcasts, they have to fit into a 25-minute format and we're very grateful for the opportunity the Lord's given us to do just that. But the radio messages are born out of a longer sermon message that contains more information, more background, a fuller explanation of the passage than what we're able to do on radio. So I encourage you to go to our website and find the link that says, Follow Don's Pulpit. That will lead you to a podcast that gives you the full-length sermons from every Sunday and every Tuesday from my pulpit. I really think that it will minister to you over time to hear the full-length messages.

So we make that available for free and we would love you to join us in that way as well. Thank you Don. And friend, to take advantage of what Don just mentioned, just visit The Truth Pulpit dot com. That's The Truth Pulpit dot com. I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word here on The Truth Pulpit.