This Week’s Reading
Acts 14:1-28
Paul’s 1st Missionary Journey
“But the apostles stayed there a long time, preaching boldly about the grace of the Lord. And the Lord proved their message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders."
“but the people of the town were divided . . . . a mob of Gentiles and Jews, along with their leaders, decided to attack and stone them." Acts 14:3-5
Why is it that in America nobody much gets healed and nobody much gets stoned?
Pastor’s Reflections
In third world Christianity believers get arrested and also see miracles of healing. Some believers are killed for their faith and others are raised from the dead. Some are stoned and others see signs and wonders. In America no one much gets stoned and no one much gets healed. I’m exaggerating perhaps but you get the message. Extremism is viewed with spurn and healers are thought charlatans, so much so that some even fight to discredit those who the power to heal in Jesus’ name.
One author wrote, “what is the medication that we have taken which has made us the ecclesiastical equivalent of a herd of cows, mooing and mooching to and fro, doing nobody any harm, but never getting excited either? Nobody much gets healed, and nobody much gets stoned”
In the book of Acts, people were thrilled, offended, amazed and angry. The Gospel has this result when its radical truth understood. What God had promised and now had done through Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, God was now doing for the whole world. And it can’t be stopped. The world was being blessed and a new King was reigning.
How can we share the Gospel, equally true and dynamic today as it was in the first century, in a way that elicits a response, either positive or negative, rather than a yawn?
If the Gospel and its details are true and if the result is a world being turned right side up and a me who has moved from death to life, how then could it possibly be that the Gospel has been tamed?
I will offer one answer to this question, an answer that came from Derek Prince on Mother's Day 2000 when we chanced to be at his home church St Giles in Charlotte. This was one of his last sermons, titled “Do Something, Somebody!” (I know some will take issue with the second #3 down below . . . I am just reporting.)
ReplyDeleteHe started by confessing that the image of the USA, in the world’s eyes after Clinton’s non-impeachment trial, was of a nation that cared more for the stock market than for honesty and morality. And that our nation now has the same kind of deep immorality as was in Israel just before her catastrophic fall.
His text was from Ezekiel 22:23-31 and he faults the prophets, priests, princes and people of this nation for the same failures as found in Israel. Their specific failures include:
1. Our prophets (ministers who are responsible to tell people the truth about God’s expectations of them and His attitude about their behavior) have promised prosperity without teaching holiness.
2. Our priests (ministers who are responsible for their flocks) have let the divide between good and evil become a gray zone, including dealing with activities on the Sabbath.
3. Our princes (secular leader-politicians of a nation) care more for the stock market than for honesty and morality, as mentioned above.
4. Our people (us) have mistaken (material) prosperity for success, success as illustrated at Paul’s 1 Cor 4:8-12.
The solution God sought was for a man who would:
1. First, make or rebuild the wall(s) . . . and then,
2. Stand in the gap as an intercessor between God and the object of His wrath, a la Moses.
He, Derek, went on to mention 3 walls brought to him during meditation that he believes have tumbled, that must be re-built in order for the impending disaster to be averted. These are:
1. The distinction between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood (see Isaiah 5:20 and 59:13-14). We must get back to telling the truth, especially from the pulpit.
2. The distinction between real and unreal, brought on largely by TV and the other media that has led to youngsters who are unable to differentiate between TV violence and reality.
3. Finally the one Derek thinks began all the disintegration, and the one which must be replaced before the others can be, is that the distinction between Male and Female has been “totally broken” using his words.
In explaining #3, Derek pointed out that Females are distinct among all living creatures in the special way they were created and in the amount of detail in Genesis about this. God clearly made Females to be especially separate and different from all of His other creations, including Males who came from dust. Jesus emphasized that there is Male and there is Female to the Pharisees (Matt 19:4).
Derek feels the distinction began to be blurred back in the 1960s when, as opposed to Deuteronomy 22:5, women began to wear men’s clothing’s. That once this break occurred, “the door to confusion” was opened and this has led to all kinds of abominations, anathema in God’s eyes.
Derek says that God holds the church accountable for its nation (salt and light) and that unless we do something, we may be “thrown out and trampled underfoot” like the church in Russia and Europe.
This is where the title came from – Derek told about how at a family get-together, a 5-year old fell into a swimming pool; when he was fished out, wet and scared, he looked at the crowd and shouted, “Do Something, Somebody!”.
Noting that this is directed at a person, Derek then described the Titus 2:3-5 Program begun at Crossroads by Diana Hagee as an example of how the walls can be rebuilt when just one somebody does something. Derek then challenged the St. Giles church to adopt the same program.
LK Jordan
Wow - thanks for sharing LK!
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