Monthly Archives: February 2019

THE BOOK OF ACTS – A SECOND CHANCE

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A SECOND CHANCE

“When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound of a strong wind — gale force — no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.” Acts 2:1-4 (The Message)

Such a familiar story! We know it so well, but do we? Funny how I have always taken for granted that the event took place in the upper room! But did it? They met in a house for the Feast of Passover, hardly big enough to accommodate a hundred and twenty people! Luke said that they spend all their time in the Temple, praising God (Luke 24:53). Perhaps this happened in the Temple where people would have gathered for the Pentecost ceremony, led by the high priest.

Pentecost was a harvest festival, celebrating and giving thanks for the full harvest that had been gathered in. It was also the last of the spring feasts which Messiah was to fulfil, according to the ancient rabbis. It was the only feast in which bread was made with yeast, symbolising God’s willingness to dwell with imperfect people.

The high priest would take a loaf of leavened bread, symbolising the harvest, pour olive oil through it and offer it up to God, saying, “Now the Feast of Pentecost has fully come.” It was celebrated fifty days after Passover. The symbolism is beautiful. Jesus was the “seed” sown into the ground at Passover and fifty days later, the “harvest” of the church began to be gathered in when the Holy Spirit was poured out on imperfect people. God had now taken up permanent residence in His “temple”, the people of God.

Pentecost took place on the same day of the year that God met with Israel on Mount Sinai and entered into a marriage covenant with them. On that occasion His appearance was accompanied by noisy and visual confirmations. There was the blowing of a trumpet, voices and fire and smoke. He offered them a marriage proposal and entered into a marriage covenant which they failed to honour.

The same phenomena occurred when the Holy Spirit was poured out, wind (noise), fire and smoke (visuals) and voices. At Sinai, God’s people refused to respond to His marriage proposal — they were terrified at the sound of God’s voice and pleaded with Moses, not God, to speak to them. They did not want to hear God’s voice. At Pentecost they spoke back to God, in the languages of the astonished visitors from all over the Roman Empire.

At Sinai they rejected their status as the bride — at Pentecost the church was born, which is the Bride of Christ! Subsequent to Sinai, they proved their refusal to accept God’s marriage proposal by living in perpetual spiritual adultery, consorting with the idols of the surrounding nations and dishonouring the terms of the marriage agreement until God “divorced” them by sending them back into slavery in Babylon.

At Pentecost, Jesus sent His Spirit to betroth the church to Him once again. She responded to His proposal. Now He has a bride who is learning to submit to her lover, getting to know Him and preparing herself for the day when He returns (Revelation 19:7, 8) to take her to His Father’s house (John 14:1-4) to become one with Him forever (John 17:20, 21). Together they will celebrate the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).

Pentecost has great significance for us. It is much more than the justification for speaking in tongues or exercising spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit is the inward presence of Jesus, representing Him to us, teaching us about Him, leading us into all truth, glorifying Jesus to us and through us and preparing us for the wedding when the Bridegroom comes to take us to Himself.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – MURDER MEADOW

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MURDER MEADOW

“During this time Peter stood up in the company — there were about one hundred and twenty in the room at that time — and said, “Friends, long ago the Holy Spirit spoke through David regarding Judas, who became the guide of those arresting Jesus. That Scripture had to be fulfilled and now has been. Judas was one of us and had his assigned place in this ministry. 

“As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end…Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow. It’s exactly what we find written in the Psalms:

“Let his farm become haunted so no one can ever live there…”

“And also what was written later:

“Let someone else take over his post…” Act 1:15-20 (The Message).

Peter was at it again! We must remember that this was before Pentecost. He was spot on in his application of prophecy to Judas but one has to question his so-called ‘leading’ to replace him. There is no mention here that the Holy Spirit had anything to do with what happened next.

Peter was a man of impulse and of action. They were no longer the Twelve but the Eleven and that didn’t sit well with him. He recognised that the psalm he quoted was talking about Judas and, as their natural leader, decided that Judas must be replaced. All very commendable but not in God’s scheme of things!

Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem — that’s all! No reference to doing anything else, including replacing Judas by drawing straws. That method was redundant. In a few days’ time they would have the very presence of Jesus within them as He had promised, and then there would be no need to make these kinds of decisions. God already had His replacement man waiting in the wings, but he didn’t know it and neither did Peter!

Why is this little interlude included in Luke’s story? There is no mention that Peter did the wrong thing — just the bare facts and yet, if one reads between the lines, the replacement they chose plays no part in the rest of the story. That says something! Is it a quiet little reminder that we also make decisions that make sense in the natural but are irrelevant to God’s purpose for us?

Before He left them, His very last words to them were about His replacement, the Holy Spirit, who would be in them what He was to them when He was with them. They had to learn to discern and follow His leading when He came, and in the mean time they were instructed to wait for Him.

It amazes me how eager we humans are to ‘help’ God! When things don’t happen quickly enough for us or in the way we anticipate, we add our bit, reasonable, logical, but not what God has planned. In this case it seems there was no harm done except that when God brought them His man, Paul, they had trouble accepting him because of his history.

This may seem like an irrelevant bit of information in Luke’s story but it can be a valuable lesson if we take heed. God is not out of options when we mess up. If we wait for Him, He will reveal His solution at the right time and with far greater impact than we can ever imagine. Compare Judas and Paul. Judas blew it! God replaced him with Paul, not Matthias. Now wasn’t that a good plan! 6

THE BOOK OF ACTS – IN THIS FOR GOOD

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IN THIS FOR GOOD 

“So they left the mountain called Olives and returned to Jerusalem. It was a little over a half a mile. They went to the upper room they had been using as a meeting place: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, son of James.

“They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and His brothers.” Acts 1:12-14 (The Message).

This seems like a pathetically small group of followers after three years and a spectacular life of miracles and teaching like no other rabbi. God had once said to His people when they felt overwhelmed by their circumstances, “Who despises the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10 (NIV).

The people of God had returned from exile and, after many years, they had finally rebuilt their temple, but it was an inferior temple to the one built by Solomon. They wept but God reassured them that the glory of the latter temple would exceed the glory of the former. Of course, He was referring prophetically to the human temple He would occupy after Jesus’ work of restoration through the cross.

These few people in the upper room were now right in line for the fulfilment of that prophecy. They were few in number but their potential was huge because of the one fact which Luke noted. They were in this together. Together they prayed and waited for the promise to be fulfilled.

Adam’s decision to go it alone had severed him from God and shattered the image of God in him, the oneness (ECHAD) that reflected the oneness between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one…” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV). It was imperative that this small group of people be of one heart and mind so that the Holy Spirit could have unrestricted access to their spirits.

At the beginning of human history, when the people banded together to set up a false religion in rebellion against God, God said, “‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.'” Genesis 11:8 (NIV).

In few days’ time Babel would be reversed. Their unity would be the environment into which the Holy Spirit would come to set them on the path of restoring what Adam had destroyed in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus’ prayer just before His arrest gives us a glimpse into His heart. His final request was “‘that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.'” John 17:21 (NIV).

This unity is initiated by the Spirit but maintained by the mutual submission of God’s people. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:2, 3 (NIV).

These disciples had decided to stick together, to do life together and to go it together and in that decision and their actions that followed they paved the way for the Spirit’s coming and His work in and through them.

They had made their decision – they were in this together, for good!

THE BOOK OF ACTS – HIS LAST WORDS

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HIS LAST WORDS

“These were His last words. As they watched, He was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared — in white robes! They said, ‘You Galileans! — why do you just stand here looking up to an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly — and mysteriously — as He left.'” Acts 1:9-11 (The Message).

Jesus’ last and recorded words? Yes, but never His last words! He may no longer be speaking in an audible voice here but He continues to speak to us, for us and through us. He promised us and His word guarantees that He will speak to us because He is alive.

In John 10:27 He assured His followers, “‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me.'” His disciples had to learn a new skill when He left them because they were used to His physical presence. They had to learn to discern His voice among all the voices that spoke in their inner being. Through His indwelling Spirit they continued to follow Him and soon recognised His voice in their hearts.

Jesus continues to speak for us in the Father’s presence. He speaks with a double voice. “…Because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them,” Hebrews 7:24b, 25 (NIV).

He speaks on our behalf to the Father as our faithful High Priest, but He also speaks with another powerful voice, the voice of his blood. “But you have come to Mount Zion…to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” Hebrews 12:22a, 24 (NIV). Abel’s blood cried for vengeance; Jesus’ blood cries for mercy.

Jesus is also continually speaking through us. He assured His disciples that they would be His witnesses. This is something different from the obligation put on new believers as part of their mantle as Christians. You know the story…when you came to Christ you were told; “Now you must read your Bible, pray, go to church and witness,” like the four wheels of an automobile. At least, that was what I was told. To me, that made up the sum total of what it meant to be a Christian.

The first three obligations were fairly easy for a disciplined person but the fourth! That’s where I came unstuck. My attempts at witnessing got me rebuffs that turned me off! It wasn’t working for me, so I clammed up. I wasn’t sure what I was witnessing to, anyway.

But Jesus did not give His disciples instructions to witness — He said that they would BE His witnesses. Now that’s a different ball game. He did not tell us to go around pounding people with the Bible. His Spirit does not give us power to witness but power to live so that we can be His witnesses. That’s the subtle difference. The Book of Acts is the story of people whose lives were so transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit that they turned the world upside down.

Jesus told His disciples that their love for one another and their unity would convince the world of the truth of His coming. What if His church today took Him seriously and began to listen, really listen, to His voice? He might be speaking a very different message from the one we think we are hearing!

THE BOOK OF ACTS – TIMING IS THE FATHER’S BUSINESS

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TIMING IS THE FATHER’S BUSINESS

“When they were together for the last time, they asked, ‘Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?’

“He told them, ‘You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit.  And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the world.'” Acts 1:6-8 (The Message).

The disciples were like bulldogs with a bone. They never let go of their belief that Messiah was going to free them from the Romans. Just think of how much of the impact of Jesus’ teaching they missed because they had a fixation for getting rid of Rome. It was probably one of the motivations behind Judas’ betrayal. Perhaps he wanted to shock Jesus into action — but it didn’t work.

Their constant squabbling was always about who would be ‘Prime Minister’ in Jesus’ cabinet. His teaching about greatness in the kingdom of God fell on deaf ears. They could not understand it because it always collided with their preconceived idea about the kingdom of God.

Even the cataclysmic events of the past few weeks had not dislodged their expectation. Now Jesus was about to leave them and He had still not said or done anything about the Romans! All the instruction He had given them about the kingdom of God over the past forty days had been filtered through the notion that He would take action now so that they could administer the new kingdom for Him after He had gone.

They finally brought their expectation out into the open. ‘Is this the time?’ they asked, hoping against hope that He would say yes. The answer they got cut them short, once and for all. ‘Timing is the Father’s business.’  It was not their business, and neither is it ours, to question God’s timing or intentions. Like the disciples, this is often something that consumes us so much that we miss the bigger picture and the valuable lesson.

These men were about to learn a new way of life. Up to now they had Jesus with them. He set the pace and they tagged along, not knowing what was going on but content to be with Him and let Him do the stuff while they watched and listened. They did what He told them and went where He sent them. He had given them authority and power and they had tasted some of the impact of the kingdom He was presenting.

From now on He would no longer be with them in person. They had witnessed the Holy Spirit’s power in His life. Now it was their turn. His physical presence would give way to the Spirit’s internal residence and they would have to learn to recognise His voice and follow His leading from within. This would put a new responsibility on them; to learn to discern His voice, understand His leading and follow His instructions.

Jesus did not leave a “Google map” for them, with all the details of the journey and the destination. That would have been so much easier to follow. Instead He promised them another person just like Himself; same disposition, same power, same wisdom, same purpose, same destination, but one who would be in their spirits, always there, always the same, always in charge.

This time they would do the stuff and the world would watch and listen and be convinced that Jesus is, after all, who He said He is. The issue is, like the disciples, like us, do we listen and follow, or do we ignore the Holy Spirit and do life our way? There is no better way to squelch the work of God on earth than to do it our way.