Church without signs and wonders, miracles and healings, and the gifts of the Spirit flowing regularly is an oxymoron!
Some of my favourite times in John Wimber’s meetings were when he said, “Let’s stand!” That meant it was ‘clinic’ time—where we were not just talking about the ‘stuff’ of signs and wonders but were going to do them!
Have you ever stood at the edge of the sea, waves rolling in with a force that reminds you how small you are? Have you ever looked up at the night sky, stars scattered across the vast unknown, and felt the overwhelming weight of something far greater than yourself? There are moments in life that pull us beyond what we can explain, moments that shake us, wake us up, and make us realise that we are standing in the presence of something—someone—holy. Something real. Something alive. This is the realm of signs and wonders.
Some argue that signs and wonders were just for the early church, a temporary display of God’s power to establish His kingdom and then fade into history—and that now, all we need is the written Word, the gospel preached, the doctrines understood, and nothing more.
It’s worth saying that the gospel itself is not just words—it is power. Paul is assertive in Romans 1:16, telling us that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The gospel is unshakable, authoritative, sufficient. And yet… from the beginning, God has chosen to confirm His Word with power. With evidence. With undeniable, unexplainable moments where heaven collides with earth. This is where John Wimber greatly encouraged the Church, encouraging everyone to step out and into the things of God—signs, wonders, miracles, and healing.
Prayers That Shake the Earth
Look at Acts 4. The church is under threat. Persecution is pressing in. So, they pray:
“Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29–30).
They were not praying for safety or for comfort. They were praying for boldness—boldness that would be confirmed with power. They weren’t asking for signs to replace the gospel but for signs to confirm it. To shake people awake. To shatter indifference. We must do the same!
And God answers. The place where they were gathered shakes. They are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak the word with boldness, and miracles follow.
Signs and wonders do something—they disrupt, demand attention, call people to decide. Peter heals a paralysed man in Acts 9, and what happens?
“And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord” (Acts 9:35).
The miracle wasn’t the gospel. The miracle was the flashing arrow pointing straight to Jesus.
That is how the kingdom moves—through word and power, through preaching and presence. Paul describes his ministry as one marked “by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God” (Romans 15:18–19). The miraculous was not a side note. It was central to the advance of the gospel. Not for spectacle. Not for entertainment. But to reveal the reality of a God who is near.
And of course, we need to address our sceptics…
“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign” (Matthew 12:39).
Yes—but look at the hostile context. Jesus was addressing religious leaders who had already seen the miraculous and yet refused to believe. They weren’t surfing through Google or Firefox for truth. They were looking for an excuse not to believe, and given they had Jesus right in front of them, their scepticism wasn’t honest. It was malicious resistance dressed up as intellect.
How about the early church? They weren’t asking for proof—far from it. They knew what they needed; they were asking for power—power to heal, to proclaim, and to see the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).
The Call to Earnest Desire
So, what about today? Should we expect these things, and should we long for them?
Paul says it clearly:
“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Not tolerate them. Not be open to them. Earnestly desire them. The reason is that these gifts—including the miraculous—are for the strengthening of the church and the advance of the gospel.
Church without signs and wonders, miracles and healings, and the gifts of the Spirit flowing regularly is an oxymoron!
Some say miracles were just for the apostles and their day, just to establish the early church, to bump-start it, but the Bible never says that. Instead, it tells us that spiritual gifts will continue “until the perfect comes” (1 Corinthians 13:10). And what is that perfect moment?
When we “see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
When Christ returns. Until then, we live in the tension of the now and the not yet—where the kingdom has come but is still breaking in, and breaking in, and breaking in.
Signs and wonders were never just for the apostles. Jesus sent out the seventy, and they healed the sick (Luke 10:9, 17). Stephen, a deacon, performed wonders (Acts 6:8). Philip, not an apostle, did the miraculous (Acts 8:6). The Spirit moves where He wills, in and through all who yield to Him—sometimes soft and gentle, and other times with great power and an overwhelming sense of God’s great Presence.
Paul Cain told me that sometimes the greatest miracles in William Branham’s ministry happened outside of the evangelistic tent, where they prayed for people in the car park. We can never limit God—when He decides to move, He does.
Vessels of Power
Do signs and wonders ever replace the cross? Never, not once. How about undermining the Word? Not at all. But can they open blind eyes, soften hard hearts, and bear witness to the reality of Jesus? Absolutely.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a viewpoint on this:
“What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty, that will compel people to pay attention, and to look, and to listen. . . . When God acts, he can do more in a minute than man with his organising can do in fifty years.”
We are not meant to live in a world where miracles are only memories—things that God did in a time when there were dragons, but doesn’t do anymore. Neither are we to read Acts like a history book, nodding along but never expecting God to ever move like that again.
The records in Scripture are there as a flashing neon sign: “All things are possible today, not just back then!”
We are meant to pray, to seek, to long for His power to break through—so that people would turn to Jesus, the only name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
So, do we desire signs and wonders? Absolutely—not for spectacle or for personal experience, but for the sake of His name. For the sake of the lost. For the sake of a church that is called to walk, not in words only, but in
“demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4).
This is not about chasing the supernatural for its own sake. This is about seeking God wholeheartedly, longing to see His kingdom come in fullness, positioning ourselves in prayer, in faith, in expectancy, trusting that God still moves in power today.
May we be people who do not simply read about His works but experience them—because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).