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Speaking With Boldness,
Signs and Wonders

This article is adapted from a new book by Jeff Doles
Praying With Fire: Learning to Pray With Apostolic Power

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:29-30)

WHEN Peter and John healed a lame man at the gate called "Beautiful," they drew quite a crowd. Taking full advantage of this opportunity, they began to preach about Jesus and the resurrection from the dead. This so enraged the Sadducees, they had Peter and John taken into custody by the Temple Guard. The next day, after hearing their case, the magistrates of the Temple spoke among themselves, "What shall we do to with these men? Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name" (Acts 4:16-17). So they commanded Peter and John not to speak or teach anyone about Jesus.

But Peter and John answered, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" (vv. 19-20). After they were further threatened by the court and released, they went to the Church and told them what had happened. Upon hearing this, they all lifted up their voices together and cried out to the Lord:

Sovereign Lord, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

"Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One."

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:24-30)

Peter, John and their friends prayed to the Lord as the Ruler of all and Creator of everything, appealing to the prophetic word the Holy Spirit had spoken through David. This word, recorded in Psalm 2, spoke of a conspiracy of rage and opposition to God's Anointed One, the Christ. Now this prophecy was being fulfilled, by the likes of Herod, Pilate and others, who tried to silence Jesus and the preaching of His name. So they turned to the Lord with two requests:

First, in view of the threats which were rising around them, they asked the Lord to enable them to preach His Word with great boldness. This means to flow with outspokenness, to speak frankly or bluntly, and with great assurance. To speak the Word of God with boldness is to declare it plainly, openly, freely. There is a clarity and directness to it that comes out of being free from fear. This kind of confidence must come from God and is a work of the Holy Spirit. As Paul reminded Timothy, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV).

Second, they asked the Lord to stretch forth His hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders in the name of Jesus. Healing reveals the compassion of Jesus, signs point others to Him, and wonders inspire awe about who He is and what He has done. These are important to the task of evangelism because they focus the attention on the Lord Jesus Christ-they are done in His name and bring glory to Him. That is exactly what happened when Peter and John healed the lame man. It captured the attention of a crowd and presented an opportunity for Peter and John to preach about Jesus.

This is the same thing Jesus did in His own ministry. The Bible says, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him" (Acts 10:38 NKJV). Along with Jesus' preaching and teaching, there were healing signs and wonders.

This is also what Jesus chose and trained His disciples to do: "Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons" (Mark 3:14-15). We find this same pattern again in Mark's version of the Great Commission:

Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation ... And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people and they will get well. (Mark 16:15, 17-18)

Jesus promised them, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the world" (Acts 1:8). A witness is one who brings evidence or produces proof. In the remainder of the book of Acts, we find believers preaching the Gospel with boldness and bringing forth evidence in the form of signs and wonders. This pattern further continues in the New Testament, as we see in Paul's preaching ministry:

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done-by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ. (Romans 15:18-19)

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom but on God's power. (1 Corinthians 2:4)

Our Gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. (1 Thessalonians 1:5)

Speaking the Word of God with boldness, with signs and with wonders requires the power of the Holy Spirit-we need to be filled with the Spirit. In Acts 4:31, we see how the prayer of Peter, John and their companions was answered. "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."

Ask God to enable you to speak His Word boldly, without fear and with great assurance. Ask Him to extend His healing hand and perform miraculous signs and wonders in the name of Jesus. Ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit and with power, then open your mouth to declare His Word with confidence.

© 2004 by Jeff Doles.
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