The Bible abounds with sign-witnesses. 

Noah was a sign-witness to the antediluvian world while he built the Ark at the command of God. Every nail he hammered home was a sign to the scoffers of the coming judgment of the Flood. 

Abraham was a sign-witness to all of us who follow in his footsteps (Rom. 4:12). As the father of faith, his offering up of his son Isaac at the command of God was a sign of his belief in God's ability to fulfill His promises, even though the thing asked of him was beyond all reason and totally unexplainable. 

Joseph, when he caused his brethren to take an oath not to leave his bones in Egypt, was a sign-witness of the faithfulness of God to fulfill His Word (Gen. 50:25-26). The mummy coffin, labeled Passenger to Canaan, must have been a constant reminder to the Children of Israel of Jehovah's perpetual faithfulness to His promise to lead them forth into the Promised Land. 

Samson was a sign-witness through wearing the long hair of a Nazarite (Num. 6). His long hair symbolized his special separation unto the Lord. When he abandoned his sanctified position of Nazarite with the cutting off of his hair, he lost his power with God and became as any ordinary man. 

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and Daniel in the lions' den, were sign-witnesses that their God was able to deliver out of the hands of the enemy. We read that the hair on the heads of the trio was not singed! And, in the case of Daniel, the mouths of the lions were shut. 

Jonah, in the whale's belly for three days and nights and his deliverance therefrom, was a sign to the inhabitants of the wicked city of Ninevah. What an astonishing sight this resurrected man must have been to the people as the news spread abroad about his experience! As he walked through the streets of the city crying out, "Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown," he was a living illustration of the message he preached; the judgment of God had placed him in the belly of the great fish as the runaway prophet, but the mercy of God delivered him when he cried out in repentance. No wonder the city repented as they saw dramatized before them the living symbol of the judgment and grace of God. 

Jonah's experience also was a sign to a coming generation of the burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 12:39-40). 

Simeon and Anna were sign-witnesses of the future remnant of the Lord's people who will eagerly anticipate the second advent of their Redeemer (Luke 2:25,38). 

John the Baptist was a sign-witness to the smug, complacent, religious people of his day as he came out of the desert dressed in clothing woven of camel's hair, wearing a leather girdle around his loins and eating locusts and wild honey. His striking appearance and stentorian voice arrested the people as he thundered forth the message of repentance. As the forerunner of the Messiah, he was a sign to the religious hypocrites of an uncompromising God against all sin and worldliness. 

John the apostle, on the Isle of Patmos, was commanded by God to be a sign-witness through receiving holy visions (Rev. 1:1-2). The things which he saw and heard, he had to put down in a book. This book of symbolic language was the prophetical message of coming events for the church and the nations of the world. 

This is copyrighted material from James Stewart's book Come O Breath!, available from Revival Literature, PO Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816.