How God speaks to us Talk 17 Supernatural signs
Another way God speaks to us is by supernatural signs. In Acts 2:22 Peter refers to Jesus as a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs. And in Hebrews 2:4 we read that God testifies to our salvation by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
These three words, miracles, signs, and wonders, reveal three different aspects of the miraculous power of God. The word that is often translated as miracle literally means power. Miracles demonstrate how powerful God is, and they make us wonder. They cause amazement. They are also signs. They point the way.
As we look at both the Old and New Testaments, we see that through signs and wonders God is speaking to us, demonstrating his power, revealing his love, confirming his promises, and giving us direction. Perhaps the best OT example of God giving direction through supernatural signs is found in the story of Gideon (Judges 6-7). In these chapters God speaks to Gideon in several different ways:
- through a prophet (v8)
- by an angel (v12)
- by supernatural signs (vv17-21, 36-40)
- by speaking to him (possibly in a dream or vision) in the night (v25, 7:2, 4, 5, 7, 9)
- through another person’s dream and its interpretation (7:7-14)
So supernatural signs are just one of several ways in which God speaks to Gideon, and, as we shall see, the signs God gives him are not so much a case of God speaking to him as a confirmation of what God has already said to him. But let’s remind ourselves of the story.
The Israelites had done evil in the sight of the Lord and as a result were being oppressed by the Midianites. But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help, he sent a prophet who reminded them of how the Lord had delivered them in the past and told them the reason for their problem – they had not listened to the Lord. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said: The Lord is with you, mighty warrior (6:12).
When Gideon protests (v.13), the Lord says to him:
Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (14) …I will be with you (16).
Then Gideon says:
If now I have found favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me (17).
Gideon then brings an offering to the Lord and the Lord responds by touching it with the tip of his staff. Immediately fire flares up and consumes the offering and the angel disappears (21). Gideon, realising who he’s been speaking to, fears for his life and says:
Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!” (22).
But the Lord says to him:
Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die (23).
What’s particularly noteworthy in this passage is the fact that Gideon seems to understand clearly the message he is receiving. God is with him and will use him to deliver Israel from the Midianites. But he needs reassurance because he finds it hard to believe that God would use someone like him and so he wonders if it really is God who is speaking to him (v17). So he asks for a sign.
Later in the chapter we read that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and that he blew a trumpet, summoning an army to follow him (34-35). But, despite the promise and all the signs the Lord has already given him, Gideon still seeks reassurance and asks for further confirmation. In verses 36-40 we read:
- Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised, 37. look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38. And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew – a bowlful of water. 39. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew.” 40. That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
Now it’s important to understand this correctly, especially as some Christians today expect God to guide them by ‘putting out a fleece’. They’re not sure what God wants them to do, and so they say something like this:
Lord, if you want me to do A, let B happen.
Which is fine, if we understand that Gideon was asking God to do something that was supernatural, something which couldn’t possibly happen unless God did it – like how God moved the shadow backwards for Hezekiah as a sign that he was extending his life for fifteen more years (2 Kings 20:1-11).
What’s more, by asking God to make the fleece wet, and then dry, Gideon was not asking God to do something that might possibly be contrary to God’s will. As an example of what I mean, consider the following. Let’s suppose I want to know if God wants me to go to London tomorrow; so I say:
Lord, if you want me to go to London tomorrow, let my cousin John come and see me today.
I hope it’s obvious that, although this fits the formula, Lord, if you want me to do A, let B happen, it’s by no means an exact parallel with what Gideon did. Why do I say this? Because, although it might be unlikely that my cousin would come and see me today, and even if I might think that it would be a miracle if he did, it might just be God’s will that my cousin does something completely different! So if God does want me to go to London tomorrow, but he doesn’t want my cousin to come and see me today, how can he possibly answer the foolish prayer I’ve just prayed?!
So please be very careful about asking God to make something happen as a sign that he wants you to do something, especially as after the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, there’s no NT example of anyone ‘putting out a fleece’.
Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that Gideon shouldn’t have needed this sign. God had already spoken very clearly to him in several ways and God’s word should have been enough. Despite this, God graciously did what Gideon asked, as he does for us when, like Gideon, we need reassurance.
When we turn to the New Testament, we find that the main purpose of signs is to point people to Jesus. The star the wise men followed led them to Jesus (Matthew 2). Jesus himself performed signs and wonders because he knew that without them some people would not believe in him (John 4:48). The miracles he performed were signs that with the coming of Jesus the kingdom of God had come (Matthew 12:28, Luke 11:20). And Peter tells us that the miracles Jesus performed were signs that were given by God to testify who Jesus was (Acts 2:22).
As John is nearing the end of his Gospel, having recorded amazing miracles like Jesus turning water into wine, healing a man who was born blind, feeding five thousand people, and raising Lazarus from the dead, he writes:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
(John 20:30-31).
And God still works miracles to confirm the word of those who are preaching the good news about Jesus (Mark 16:15-20). This was the main purpose of the miracles recorded in the Book of Acts. Thousands came to faith in Jesus through the miracle of tongues at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) and the healing of the lame beggar in Acts 3 led to thousands more (Acts 4:4). In Acts 5 more and more men and women believed in the Lord as a result of the signs and wonders performed by the apostles (vv12-14). And when Philip the evangelist went to Samaria, crowds of people saw the signs he performed, believed in Jesus and were baptised (Acts 8:6-7, 12).
So the main purpose of signs in the New Testament was to point people to Jesus. But how does this help us if we’re already Christians. How does God speak to us through signs? Part of the answer is simply that miraculous signs encourage our faith. The passage in John that we just referred to can also be translated that you may continue to believe.
And who can deny that testimonies of miracles today encourage the faith of believers? Since the publication of my book, Signs from Heaven – why I believe, in which I record some of the miracles I have seen in my own life and ministry, people have told me how much it has encouraged their faith. But that leads me to an experience which I shared in that book and how it radically altered the direction of my life.
You may remember that in an earlier talk I told you of the impact Laurie Dixon had made on my life. Remember the story of the falling rock that just missed me on the mountainside in Switzerland and how that led to Laurie telling me about the baptism in the Holy Spirit? That was in 1958. Now fast forward to July 1959.
Eileen, who was then my girlfriend, and I were sitting in the youth meeting at church singing from a well-known chorus book, when I happened to notice a list of books advertised on the back cover, one of which was entitled, The full blessing of Pentecost, by Dr Andrew Murray. Immediately I concluded that this book must be dealing with the subject Laurie had been talking about last year in Switzerland, and I suggested that it might be good to get it. In a few days, Eileen received a reply from the advertisers saying that the book was no longer available.
A bit disappointed, I returned home from Eileen’s to my parents’ house for lunch. As the meal was not quite ready, I went into the sitting room to wait. On entering, I happened to notice a book lying on the piano and casually picked it up – The full blessing of Pentecost by Dr Andrew Murray! But how did it get there? No one, except Eileen, knew anything of my interest in the subject. My parents did not know where the book had come from. It is true that my father had always had a large collection of books, but if it was his, he certainly had never read it, and didn’t even know that he possessed it. Anyway, why wasn’t it in the bookcase and how did it get on the piano?
No one to this day has any idea how that book came to be there on the very day that I had thought it to be unobtainable. The answer must surely lie in the realm of the supernatural – maybe an angel? But even if you think up a natural explanation – and that’s always possible for those who don’t want to believe – how likely is it that this was just a coincidence? No, God was confirming to us that we needed to be baptised in the Spirit, and when we had read the book, and were persuaded that the experience was biblical, we were both baptised in the Spirit and began to speak in tongues.
Of course, as I just mentioned, those who are sceptical try to explain away such things as the appearance of the book as coincidences. Indeed, all answers to prayer tend to be dismissed in that way. But, as a former archbishop of Canterbury once said, I find that when I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t pray, they don’t!
In fact, what at first sight might appear to be a coincidence may very well turn out to be a sign. When one ‘coincidence’ happens after another, we may very well conclude that what is happening is actually the activity of God. This is how God spoke to me when I desperately needed to be sure that the pathway we had embarked upon was really in the will of God.
It was at the beginning of the 1980s while I was Principal of Mattersey Hall Bible College. As the facilities at the time were, to say the least, outdated, and as the number of students was increasing rapidly, we urgently needed to provide new accommodation for them. It was estimated that we would need £600,000 to do this (which in today’s terms would be more like £6 million). But we had nothing in the bank.
The matter was so serious that the Board of Governors referred it to the Executive Council, and the Executive Council referred it to the General Council of Assemblies of God meeting in its Annual General Conference in Minehead.
The matter was discussed at length and, during the course of the debate, one of the pastors went to the microphone and asked me a direct question: David, have you heard from the Lord? In all honesty I had to answer, No, I just know that we need this new building. The debate drew to a close and the matter was put to the vote. To my delight, the proposition to go ahead received the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution. Now all we needed was the money!
After the vote had been carried by so large a majority, I fully expected the money to come pouring in. But very little came! Everyone seemed to be leaving it to everyone else! As the time for the signing of the contract drew near, we still had very little money, and I began to be anxious. Who has to sign the contract? What happens if the money doesn’t come in? Who goes to prison if the money doesn’t come in?! These were serious questions that were troubling my mind, and I kept remembering the question that pastor had asked me in Minehead: David, have you heard from the Lord?
Eventually, in desperation I said to Eileen:
I need to hear from God about this. I’m going to pray all night, and if he doesn’t speak to me, I’m going to phone the Board of Governors and cancel the whole thing.
So I began my night of prayer. After several hours, at around 2am, I began to feel like giving up. God wasn’t speaking and I really didn’t know what to do. I decided to take a break, so I sat down on the settee and picked up a copy of Redemption Tidings magazine.
As I opened it the title on the editorial page struck me forcibly: FAITH. So I began to read. Now if you have ever been in desperate need to hear from God and have been in a meeting where someone has brought a prophetic word which you have known was just for you, you will understand just how I felt as I read that editorial. Every single word of it came as Thus says the Lord to David Petts. I knew that God had spoken. I knew that we were to go ahead. I knelt down by the settee and sobbed into the cushion and asked God to forgive me for my lack of faith. Then I went to bed. From that moment I never doubted that God was behind our building project after all.
But that is not the end of the story. The next morning I went down to the College and walked into the office. Ernest Anderson, who was then a resident member of faculty, was standing there and I excitedly told him what had happened.
That’s wonderful, David, he said, I was praying all night too.
I thought it was strange that we had both decided independently to pray all night and I could not imagine why he had decided to do so.
Oh, I said, What were you praying for?
To which he replied:
I was praying for the same thing. I knew that unless you, as the Principal of the College, heard from God, the thing would never happen.
Oh, thank you Ernest, I said, but you could have gone to bed at 2 o’clock!
I immediately telephoned Colin Whittaker, the editor of the magazine. Colin, I said, you have written the greatest editorial you will ever write, and I told him what had happened. Then he told me that he had known when he was writing the editorial that he was writing it for the College, but he had not felt able to be that explicit in print.
Some coincidence! I knew beyond doubt that this was far more. That series of events could not possibly be coincidence and through it I received confirmation that what I had read really was a word from God, a word that gave me faith for something bigger than myself. And, of course, because it was from God, it came to pass.
But faith does not always see immediate results. It is sometimes tested, and in fact it was a few years before the building was finally complete. There was an initial response as I told the story of how the Lord has spoken to me, and we were soon able to provide new accommodation for 32 of our students, but then the flow of funds dried up and building had to be delayed. Sure that we had received a word from the Lord, the Board of Governors, of which I was a member, decided to spend a day together in prayer and fasting.
Towards the end of the day, Paul Newberry shared with us two verses that he felt the Holy Spirit had impressed upon him from Micah 7:
Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light (v8).
The day for building your walls will come, the day for extending your boundaries (v11).
It seemed to us that the Lord was saying that the enemy would have no reason to gloat over the present delay in our building project. Now was not God’s time for more building development, but that the time for building would surely come.
Encouraged by this I went home. Our daughter Sarah was home from college and I called to her as I entered the house. I’m up here, she said, calling from her bedroom. I went up to see her and, to my surprise, she was sitting in the dark. When I asked her why, she replied in the words of Micah 7:8. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light! What a confirmation! The same verse from two different people in two different places in the space of less than one hour.
And, of course, the time for building did come, and at the time of preparing this talk, I’ll be back there teaching this week and I think I’ll be staying in that very building.
But now it’s time to summarise what we have learned in this talk.
- Signs are not so much God speaking to us, but God confirming what he has said.
- Be careful if you’re thinking of putting out a fleece.
- In the New Testament the main purpose of signs is to point people to Jesus. They also encourage the faith of those who are already Christians.
- With God there’s no such thing as coincidence. He is working all things together for the good of those he has called according to his purpose. Remarkable coincidences are very often God’s way of confirming what he’s already said.
Next time: Promptings