Monthly Archives: March 2019

THE BOOK OF ACTS – WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

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WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?

“Meanwhile, the Chief Priest and his cronies convened the High Council, Israel’s senate, and sent to the jail to have the prisoners brought in. When the police got there, they couldn’t find them anywhere in the jail. They went back and reported, ‘We found the jail locked tight as a drum and the guards posted at the doors, but when we went inside we didn’t find a soul.’

“The chief of the Temple police and the high priests were puzzled. ‘What’s going on here anyway?’

“Just then someone showed up and said, ‘Did you know that the men you put in jail are back in the Temple teaching the people?’ The chief and his police went and got them, but they handled them gently, fearful that the people would riot and turn on them.” Acts 5:21-26 (The Message).

What an impossible situation! How could these puny humans think they could challenge God? Surely this crazy turn of events should have warned them to back off!

After considering everything that God has done to restore us to fellowship with Him and all the possible adversities and reverses we can experience in life to cut us off from Him again, the Apostle Paul came to this conclusion: “What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?….I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:33, 37-39 (NIV).

The story of Jesus’ apostles takes many twists and turns. They were jailed and sometimes supernaturally released, like Peter and John, and sometimes stayed incarcerated for a long time. Some were executed, like James and Stephen while others were released. Doesn’t this seem a rather unfair and arbitrary way for God to treat His followers?

Paul’s ringing testimony negates a silly conclusion like that. “And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 (NIV). It all depends on one’s point of view.

If we are in it for what we can get out of it, life’s vicissitudes will be very frustrating. It is difficult to get God to do what we want when He has a different agenda. We can “name it and claim it” or practise our faith techniques all we like, but God happens to be in charge and He is painting on a bigger canvas than we can see.

When we finally come to the conclusion that He is not obliged to do anything for us, life begins to make much more sense and the joy of being free to love Him because He is who He is, is a glorious experience. What we deserve is what Jesus suffered for us. What He does for us is entirely out of grace because He wants to and not because He has to.

The apostles were free to enjoy their journey because they could trust the One who was in charge. As long as they were alive, they got on with the job at hand. If their lives were cut short, as many of them were, they enjoyed the reward for their obedience and the benefits of the kingdom they represented.

There is both pathos and humour in the story. The Jewish hierarchy was playing cat and mouse but its “mouse” had the unfair advantage of having God rooting for them. Their quarry was not at their mercy but in the safe hands of God who was both using them for His purposes and honing them as sons for His glory.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – DON’T MESS WITH GOD

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DON’T MESS WITH GOD

“Provoked mightily by all this, the Chief Priest and those on his side, mainly the sect of Sadducees, went into action, arrested the apostles and put them in the town jail. But during the night an angel of God opened the jailhouse door and led them out. He said, ‘Go to the Temple and take your stand. Tell the people everything there is to say about this life.’

Promptly obedient, they entered the Temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching.” Acts 5:17-20 (The Message).

When would these religious leaders ever learn that no one can mess with God and get away with it? They tried it with Jesus and lost, and now they were at it again.

It seems that the High Priest had the ear of the Sadducees. They were a wealthy and powerful political sect whose main religious claim to fame was what they did not believe, not what they did believe. They vehemently defended their denial of the supernatural in general and the resurrection in particular. Why would the High Priest be in bed with them – money, power? Support them and they would support him.

But they had a serious problem. The man they killed was alive again, or so His followers were saying, and to prove it, supernatural things were happening. The very things they conveniently believed so that they would not have to have dealings with a supernatural God were happening under their noses. To stop it was like trying to put a cork in a volcano!

But they were trying!

Step one — silence the leaders. If they abused them enough, they might silence them, so they thought. Put them in jail, threaten them, and intimidate them enough to shut them up. They had already tried that once but it only resulted in another wave of miracles and an influx of new believers,

Step two — increase the pressure. The apostles had taken no notice of their bullying tactics the first time. They were accountable to a higher authority. They had their instructions and they were not about to renege on their commitment to Jesus as rightful Lord, not any Jewish council or political power.

The one ally the High Priest and his cronies had not reckoned on was the army of heaven. It only took the action of one angel to unravel their plan. Jail the apostles and an angel had the key. In fact, he didn’t need a key. No jailhouse door could keep an angel out or the apostles in! How was that for civil disobedience!

The angel’s instructions fall strangely on the ears of a modern western church bent on preservation rather than propagation. “Go back and teach in the Temple,” he told them. Sitting in jail for a night was an unforeseen interruption in their assignment. There was no time to go home and lick their wounds.

This was spiritual warfare at its best. Paul understood the truth about “spiritual warfare” — not the idea that we have to engage the enemy by all manner of futile activities like Jericho marches, prayer walks, binding and loosing, taking authority, rebuking the devil, identifying and pulling down strongholds etc. It all sounds very “spiritual” but amounts to nothing since Jesus has already exposed and made a fool of him at the cross.

Paul said, “Stand!” That’s all! Peter said, “Submit to God!” That’s all! Just keep declaring and living the truth regardless of the interruptions. The battle is the Lord’s. If as much time were spent preaching the Word of God as is spent on all these useless activities in the name of spiritual warfare, the lives of many more would be changed, bringing the kingdom of God where it is needed most.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – AN EXPLOSION OF GOD-SIGNS

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AN EXPLOSION OF GOD-SIGNS

“Through the work of the apostles, many God-signs were set up among the people, many wonderful things done. They all met regularly and in remarkable harmony in the Temple porch named after Solomon. But even though people admired them a lot, outsiders were wary about joining them. On the other hand, those who put their trust in the Master were added right and left, both men and women. They even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on stretchers and bedrolls, hoping they would be touched by Peter’s shadow when he walked by. They came from the villages surrounding Jerusalem, throngs of them, bringing the sick and bedevilled. And they all were healed.” Acts 5:12-16 (The Message).

This seems like a story from another world, doesn’t it? What made it possible for the power of God to flow so freely in a community no different from our own?

This was no longer a small and insignificant religious movement in Jerusalem. The church had grown to thousands – the initial harvest on the day of Pentecost was three thousand new believers and another five thousand after the healing of the crippled beggar. In spite of the shocking death of Ananias and Sapphire, more believers were added to the church. Almost every chapter of Luke’s record comments on the explosive growth of the church.

No doubt there were many from outside Jerusalem who put their faith in Jesus and carried the message back to their homes. People were flocking to the city from the villages and towns around the capital city to have a share in this mass healing that was happening in the city. With every attack on the apostles came a new wave of believers. Persecution did not slow down the growth of the church but it certainly sifted out those who wanted to be in it for the ride.

Satan’s initial strategy was to try to destroy the church from without. He unleashed a bitter attack from two quarters, religion and politics. The Jewish Sanhedrin tried to flex its muscles against the leaders of the church but that did not work. It only drove the people closer together and kept out the hangers-on like Ananias and Sapphira who wanted to get mileage out of their participation.

As the church spilled over into the rest of the Roman Empire, it fell foul of the Emperors whose claim to being God was challenged and disproved. Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, and His Lordship was confirmed wherever the church spread, by the lives of the believers and the power of God working through them.

The early church functioned under strong leadership and accurate teaching. The apostles were there to guide the ship. It was not a free-for-all. This was not a democracy. Jesus was head of His church and He had appointed leaders who would hear Him and be accountable to Him. The apostles had learned to be followers before they could be leaders. The unity of the church was maintained by humble submission to leadership and by the purging effect of persecution.

Are there some lessons in the history of the early church for us today? There surely are! There are too many self-appointed and self-taught leaders in the church who gather people around themselves instead of connecting them to Jesus.

Perhaps, if local churches went back to Jesus’ original call, “Follow me,” and committed themselves to the model of the early church, “…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:20, 21 – NIV), we might once again see the power of God fill a pure church and transform communities as He did in the beginning.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – DEADLY PRESUMPTION

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DEADLY PRESUMPTION

“Not more than three hours later his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in. Peter said, ‘Tell me, were you given this price for your field?’

‘”Yes.’ she said, ‘that price.’

“Peter responded, ‘What’s going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Master? The men who buried your husband are at the door and you’re next.’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

By this time the whole church and, in fact, everyone who heard these things had a healthy respect for God. They knew God was not to be trifled with.” Acts 5:7-11 (The Message).

What a pity that everyone, insiders and outsiders alike, does not have a healthy respect for God today. That was Paul’s diagnosis of the state of his world in the first century and it is equally true of the people in our world today.

The death of these two interlopers should carry a strong message for us in the church today. Just because God does not act as decisively against offenders in the church as He did then does not mean that He disregards the seriousness of this kind of behaviour.

There is something distasteful about the sin of presumption. In Psalm 50 the Holy Spirit, through David, said this: “These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you.” Ananias and Sapphira presumed that they could deceive the apostolic leadership and the whole church and get away with it. They did not reckon on the work of the Spirit we call “spiritual gifts”.

Those who are sensitive and in touch with the Holy Spirit’s voice within, and that includes every believer, not only the spiritual “elite”, have access to a range of “gifts” which are intended to enhance the smooth functioning of the church. These gifts include insight into things only the Holy Spirit can reveal, like the deception these two people were trying to pull off on the church.

These abilities to function in the realm of the supernatural are essential to minister help and hope to believers as well as to keep the people’s hearts open before God and to keep interlopers from polluting the fellowship. (Unfortunately some streams within the  church have claimed these “gifts” as evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit — especially speaking in tongues — and elevated those who practise them to the level of “Spirit-filled” believers as though this is a qualification for God’s special attention).

Peter was quick to pick up in his spirit the deception Ananias and Sapphira were trying to pull off on the church. It takes confidence and courage to speak out against what they had connived to do. What if he were wrong? What if God had killed him for wrongly accusing them? The fact that they were caught out and taken out points to God’s concern for His own honour and Peter’s accurate discernment of their hearts.

Moses suffered the same consequences, though not as dramatically, for not upholding God’s honour in front of His people. When he displayed his irritation with the people for their unbelief and struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it, he disqualified himself from taking the people into the Promised Land. He was barred from completing the work he had begun and he died outside the land he had longed to enter.

What would God have to do today to purge the church of people who presume on the grace of God so that they do what they like and think that they will get away with it? When the church of the Lord Jesus returns to living in the fear of the Lord, perhaps the world will begin to take the church more seriously.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10 (NIV).

TH BOOK OF ACTS – THEY LIED AND DIED

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CHAPTER 5

THEY LIED AND DIED

“But a man named Ananias — his wife Sapphira, conniving in this with him — sold a piece of land, secretly kept back part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it.

“Peter said, ‘Ananias, how did ,Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field? Before you sold it, it was all yours; and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to pull a trick like this? You didn’t lie to men but to God.’

Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of it. The younger men went right to work and wrapped him up, then carried him out for burial.” Acts 5:1-6 (The Message).

Jealousy; wanting to be thought generous; looking for approval; what was it that motivated these two people to cook up this plan?

This is the first crack in the apparently ‘perfect’ and idyllic fellowship of the church. In spite of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, there had to be those in the church who were not really of the church, the hangers on who were in it for what they could get out of it. Satan’s emissaries are everywhere, including within the church.

This story is a frightening reminder of what Jesus had to say about the power of money and possessions. One wonders why He spoke about money more than any other subject, including things like prayer, the kingdom of God, grace, etc. Because He happened to understand the depth of human greed, He showed us how deeply the love of money is ingrained in the core of our beings.

It was the love of money that kept the rich young ruler away from eternal life. It was his attitude to money that revealed the transformation that had happened to Zaccheaus. It is the way we handle our money that reveals the level of our spiritual maturity and will determine our role in the life to come (Luke 16). Where our treasure is reveals where our hearts are.

This incident with Ananias and Sapphira is a shocking reminder that God is fully aware of the thoughts and motives that drive us from the inside. It was not the fact that they had money; it was their attempt to manipulate the church’s attitude towards them with their money that caught them out. They were not being genuinely generous; they were being secretly self-seeking by acting generous in front of the church but keeping back some of the money for themselves. And God knew and, unfortunately for them, so did Peter through the Holy Spirit.

How often do we not also try to manipulate people’s attitude towards us by acting on the outside what we are not on the inside! This is insincere, to say the least and hypocritical — something which God hates. It is an attempt to make ourselves better than other people or better than we are. This is a subtle form of idolatry, putting ourselves on a pedestal for people to admire.

It’s even worse when pastors elevate themselves above their congregations; closed doors, unlisted telephone numbers, unapproachable, untouchable etc. What happened to “servants leaders”; “shepherds of the flock”; “examples” etc.?

Once again there is a call to the simplicity of “following Jesus”. He did not live to impress people but to obey the Father and He was NEVER unapproachable.

If you have an “approval addiction”, to quote Joyce Meyer, get help! There is blessed freedom in living to please God and not people.