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THE BOOK OF ACTS – RESURRECTION PROOF

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RESURRECTION PROOF

“When this became known all over Joppa many put their trust in the Master. Peter stayed on a long time in Joppa as a guest of Simon the Tanner.” Acts 9:42-43 (The Message).

What was it that caused the message of Jesus to touch people’s lives in wave upon wave every time a miracle happened? Was it the miracles that attracted them or was it the proof that Jesus was alive that convinced them?

Miracles do not produce or sustain faith. We only have to read the story of God’s people in their deliverance from Egypt and their sojourn in the wilderness to recognise this. At no other time in their history did the Israelites experience more or greater miracles than when God rescued them from Pharaoh “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” and cared for them for forty years in the desert.

Plagues that destroyed a nation and its economy and finally wiped out its military might; natural phenomena like a wind so powerful that it cut a path through the sea; manna that appeared every six days out of seven; a flock of birds so vast that it covered their camp; water that flowed out of a rock enough to satisfy the needs of more than two million people; a pillar of cloud that gave the people shade from the desert sun by day and fire that warmed them at night — these and much more, were the order of the day. Could God have done any more for them than He did?

Yet they grumbled, rebelled, disobeyed and even set up a forbidden image in spite of all the miracles that attested to God’s invisible presence with them and power among them. A deeper investigation into the Old Testament actually reveals that the greatest miracles happened during the times of Israel’s greatest unbelief e.g., during the times of Elijah and Elisha.

No, miracles do not produce saving faith. What was it that convinced people everywhere that what the disciples were proclaiming was the truth? There were no billboards inviting people to “come and get your miracle” as we so often see today. Their message was simple. “Jesus is alive and He is Lord.”

It was the resurrection of Jesus that powered their faith. Miracles were the evidence of the presence of God’s kingdom on earth. People put their faith in the risen Jesus, not to get their miracle but because He is alive and He is who He said He is. They did not come to Him to get their needs met or to have a comfortable life or even a free ticket to heaven. They entrusted their lives to Him because He is Lord.

Not even the threat of persecution could stop the phenomenal growth of the church. Persecution weeded out the passengers and strengthened the faith and character of those who truly followed Jesus. And God continued to verify the truth of His Son’s resurrection by confirming His word with signs following.

Peter remained in Joppa. A new branch of the church was growing there. As a guest of Simon the Tanner, he stayed on to preach and teach about Jesus so that the faith of these new believers would be anchored in the truth of who Jesus is.

What if Jesus did nothing for us? He owes us nothing and is under no obligation to do anything for us. Would we still follow Him and put our trust in Him, or is our faith so mercenary that we only believe in Him for what we can get out of it? What He does for us flows from His infinite generosity and we are beneficiaries of pure grace.

It is His passion to put His glory on display that prompts His goodness to us. Let us never slip into the false notion that there is anything in us or anything we can do for Him that merits His favour.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – STONE BLIND!

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STONE BLIND!

“His companions stood there dumbstruck – they could hear the sound, but couldn’t see anyone – while Saul, picking himself up off the ground, found himself stone blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. He continued blind for three days. He ate nothing, drank nothing.” Acts 9:7-9 (The Message).

We tend to think of Paul’s “Damascus” experience as the moment when he had a blinding revelation of Jesus, lying on the ground and hearing a voice so real that his companions heard it too. No doubt that was the beginning but what about the three days of blindness and fasting in Damascus that must have elongated and consolidated that life-changing encounter with the Master.

In his letter to the Galatians, in the heat of the defense of his apostleship, he refers, possibly, to this interlude in his life, suspended in time, when the on-going revelation of Jesus forever cemented his conviction and his loyalty to Him as the Son of God. He lived in the aura of this moment for the rest of his life.

“I want you to know, brothers that the gospel I preach is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man…” Galatians 1:11-16 (NIV).

What transpired in his heart in those three days of blindness and solitude? No-one dared go near him – at least none of the community of believers – because his reputation had preceded him. He was probably too stunned to say anything to anyone. Even those who hosted him, most likely people of his old persuasion, (seeing his travel companions were like-minded and would have contacts in Damascus), would have left him alone.

How would they have understood why he was suddenly blind and why the fire of hatred against the believers had gone out? They must have either tiptoed around him or left him alone to process what had happened.

Perhaps he reflected on the bewildering experience of watching Stephen die at the hands of vicious murders, witnessing such grace that it fired his antagonism even more. Now the Jesus whom Stephen saw in his dying moments was the Jesus who had spoken to him outside the city. So He was alive after all! He could no longer dispute that, and fighting against it was futile.

Whatever took place in his inner being during those days, Saul was convinced that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead and that everything He had preached and claimed was the truth. From now on he, Saul, soon to be renamed Paul, would as fearlessly proclaim His resurrection as he had fought against it in his ignorance.

Nothing less than a personal encounter with the risen Jesus could have ever convinced him of the truth. For three days and nights he marinated in that moment until it energised and influenced every waking minute of the rest of his life.

Without the resurrection, our faith is as empty and ridiculous as any other religious fantasies taught and believed as fact. Jesus Christ of Nazareth claimed to be the Son of God and, to prove it, He said He would be crucified and, after three days, He would rise again. He said it and He did it! Whatever else He said, did and promised hinges on this.

In those three days of physical blindness, Saul came alive, and was able to “see” more clearly than he had even seen before. His eyes were opened and he saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – TOO LATE!

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CHAPTER 4

TOO LATE!

“While Peter and John were addressing the people, the priests, the chief of the Temple police and some Sadducees came up, indignant that these upstart apostles were instructing the people and proclaiming that the resurrection from the dead had taken place in Jesus. They arrested them and threw them into jail until morning, for by now it was late in the evening. But many of those who had listened had already believed the Message — in round numbers about five thousand.” Acts 4:1-4 (The Message).

The time of favour was over! Persecution began to rain down on the apostles like lava from an erupting volcano. They were insisting that Jesus was alive and doing miracles to prove it. This ‘routine’ execution of a man the Jewish religious leaders claimed was a blasphemer had backfired on them and now it had come back to haunt them. They thought they had silenced Him and squashed the movement that had sprung up around Him but instead, they had actually poured oil on the fire and it was spreading faster than they could contain it.

What was it in these religious leaders that made them so determined to stamp out the truth and silence their opposition? What is it in any religious organization that is willing to kill to promote their beliefs? Murder is justifiable in their eyes if they cannot force their beliefs down the throats of their ‘enemies’.

Just as fiercely as God protects man’s right to make his own choices, even to damning himself to the rubbish heap if he so wills, so fiercely do some elements of the human race, and especially in the name of some ‘god’, call it what they will, demand the right to force others to embrace their beliefs or die.

One of the worst elements of Adam’s rebellion against God was the ingrained determination to control other people. It is the root cause of conflict, from conflict between individuals to conflict in homes, in society, in nations and in the world. We all want our own way and we want it at the expense of others.

But why is it that the worst expression of control between people happens over their religious beliefs and practices? More people have perished in religious persecution over the centuries than all the wars put together. That tells us just how deep-rooted this flaw is in human nature.

Some one hundred and fifty million believers died at the hands of the Church during the Inquisition. And what of the people who perished under the Nazi regime, under communism and in countries today where religion is legislated and where to convert is an automatic death sentence?

People who control are often people who were controlled. This produces insecurity expressed in anger which can only be relieved by controlling others. Put this together with an inborn suspicion and hatred for God and you have a recipe for religious persecution. Strong leaders who control become a hierarchy of controllers with enough power to subdue millions through fear. At the root of it all, amazingly, is….money and power. Scratch under the surface of every dictatorship and every autocratic regime and you will find the glint of gold and, of course, money is power!

That these religious persecutors had not bargained for was a group of fearless people who refused to be silenced, even on pain of death, because they were convinced of the truth that Jesus was alive. Nothing could change that. Where lies controlled the people through fear, the knowledge of the truth had set them free from fear and not even the threat of death would shut them up.

For these religious persecutors it was too late; too late to put the lid on something they had inadvertently opened up by their passion to control.

No Thumb-suck

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NO THUMB-SUCK

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. (1 John 1: 2)

This was no thumb-suck. John was proclaiming to his readers what had actually happened. What if John were making it up as he went along? What if he were pulling off the greatest hoax in history?

But he wasn’t. There were many witnesses to the real Jesus who would ratify what John was proclaiming. If he were making it up, many would have stepped up to declare that he was talking nonsense and spinning lies. Although John wrote his letters years after the other New Testament writers, he was expanding on and recording the truths that had already been disseminated by them.

John equated Jesus with eternal life. No other figure in human history would dare to call himself that – eternal life. Jesus did not give those words to Himself as a title but as a function. He came from the Father to bring life to the world, not only endless life but a new quality of life that belonged to the realm of the eternal.

We humans equate the word “eternal” with “never ending” as though we will just keep on living the same sort of lives we are living now but with no death at the end of it. Our imagination does not stretch far enough to conjure up a real picture of the eternal realm. Eternal life is much more than never-ending. It has to do with a quality of life in a realm that is not ravaged by sin or time, or limited by the limitations of this present world.

What did Jesus mean by “eternal”? He also used the term, “the age to come”. This present age is the age in which we live now, an age of imperfection where everyone and everything in the world is influenced by Adam’s sin. Even the natural world was corrupted by sin and awaits an age when all corruption will be removed and the earth with its plants and creatures will be restored to its original perfection.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Rom. 8: 19-22)

It was sin that brought death to the world. Jesus’ death removed sin and restored the life which God intended for His children from the beginning. When we receive by faith the forgiveness of sin, God removes the penalty, death, and restores us to the realm where there is no death. Although we are still a part of this fallen world and subject to the death of our physical bodies, we are already the recipients of eternal life. When we shed these mortal bodies, we enter the eternal realm where there is no more death.

It is Jesus who brought us the gift of eternal live by removing the penalty of death from us; therefore we can say the Jesus is eternal life.

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5: 11-12)

The perpetrators of false religions can say what they like and teach what they like but they can never make or prove the claim that those who believe and follow what they teach have the indisputable promise of eternal life. How do we know that Jesus, and those who proclaimed what He taught, was telling the truth? The resurrection!

He claimed to have the authority to lay down His life and to take it up again.

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. (John. 10: 17-18)

These are either the words of a madman or the sober words of truth from the Son of God. He proved He was no madman by doing what He said He would do!  Eternal life in Jesus Christ if a free gift on offer to those who believe that He is the Son of God and that God raised Him from the dead and who confess that Jesus is Lord. It’s as simple as that.

If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10: 9)

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

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The Truth Revealed

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THE TRUTH REVEALED

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

‘Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman died too. At the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’ (Mark 12: 18-23).

First the chief priests and teachers of the law; then the Pharisees and Herodians; and now the Sadducees! Would they ever learn? They all tried to take Jesus on and came away with egg on their faces.

The Sadducees’ question was based on their ignorance and their unbelief and, of course, Jesus would put them in their place and make them look stupid. The Jews had a practice called “levirate marriage”. If a husband died childless, it was up to his brother to marry his widow and have a child for him who would be his heir and carry on the family name.

Their story was a bit far-fetched, but they obviously cooked it up to try to catch Jesus out and make Him look silly. Seven brothers all married the same woman and died childless. This wasn’t about levirate marriage. This was a dig at His teaching on the resurrection. How would He get around this one?

Again Jesus was one jump ahead of them.

Jesus replied, ‘Are you not in error because you do not know the Scripture or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising – have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are badly mistaken.’ (Mark 12: 24-27).

In a masterful reply, Jesus dealt with two errors. Firstly, the Sadducees did not understand the purpose of marriage. They thought it was about having children to carry on the family line. Jesus smartly corrected them on that one. If they had known the Scriptures, they would have understood that God intended marriage to be a visual aid of the oneness in the Godhead. This is what the Scriptures had to say:

So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them (Gen. 1: 27).

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Gen 2:24).

Mankind will not need marriage in the life to come because those who follow Jesus will be one with Him in eternity. Believers will be “married” to Jesus in an eternal union of which marriage in this life is a picture. Therefore marriage will fall away in the life to come.

Secondly, when people die, they simply move into another realm where these frail and corrupted bodies will not be able to live. God will raise us up in new and perfect bodies to live with Him in the eternal realm. He spoke of the patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as alive, not dead or even asleep as some believe.

On what did the Sadducees base their unbelief concerning the resurrection? Once again it was a human ploy to dodge responsibility and accountability for their lives. They wanted to live their lives as they chose and get away with it. No matter what belief system is developed to evade the truth of God’s Word, it cannot hold up to the scrutiny of God’s truth, and nor can it effectively be used to dodge accountability for the way people live. Simply to deny the truth will not erase it or make it go away.

Of course the resurrection of Jesus was the final proof that He was right and they were wrong.

If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised . . . And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins . . . But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15: 12, 13; 17; 20).

How much better to submit to the truth, and receive God’s grace to live within its boundaries. This is the only guarantee that we will be a part of the resurrection when Jesus returns to claim His throne and to finish what He started when He came from heaven to reveal the Father and to take us to the Father.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com