Gtcotr/ws061219
God
created the ocean and the shoreline … every wave has power and every wave has
purpose. The greatest resistance to the next wave is the last wave. This truth
runs parallel with the fact that the greatest resistance faced by anything new
in the Church is the last new thing. The old thing always resists the new
thing.
Truth
does not change however, other things do. For example: I happen to like having
a real literal Bible with me in Church. I like the kind that is bound, with
genuine cowhide. Lol. The new personal electronic devices like smart phones or
tablets just don’t speak the same thing to me. These electronic Bibles seem to
be the new thing … I just like the old thing.
However,
the old thing is not really the old thing, it’s just the my thing. The old
thing might be scrolls for some people … they could just never get into
carrying around a bound Bible with someone else’s margin notes, chronicles of
family marriages and deaths, a dictionary and a concordance, all bound together
with the Holy Word. I bet some liked their old thing.
But
wait, the scroll was not the old thing … the old thing was a tablet of stone
with nothing but the pure word of God written thereon … but wait – was that a
stone carved by a man? Because the real thing was the one written by the finger
of God!
At
any rate … it seems to be the nature of old things to resist new things, even
when the new things are God things. It’s just hard for some people, customs and
comfort zones to change, especially if the old guard believes they are
responsible to protect and preserve the old thing. No doubt this was in part
responsible for what went on in Jerusalem when the Jews began to get saved and
started believing in Jesus as the promised Christ.
These
new “Born-Again Believers” were for the most part young and uneducated and were
changing the way Jehovah had been worshipped in the Temple for centuries. These
people worshipped anywhere. The old guard was pretty upset and committed to put
a stop to this new thing.
Let’s
pick up where we left off last week in:
Acts 4 NKJV
1 ¶ Now as they spoke to the
people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon
them,
2 being greatly disturbed
that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the
dead.
3 And they laid hands on
them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already
evening.
4 However, many of those who
heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
Perhaps
you’ve heard it said that: “The proof of the pudding is in the taste of the
pudding.” This saying points to the fact that the final product means
everything. The final outcome of an event, whether a surgery, a school year, a
Church service or a friendship, is the proof of whether it was good for you or
bad for you. The ultimate outcome is the final proof.
It
is plain to see that the outcome of this lame man being healed, and Peter’s
resulting sermon produced 5000 new Believers in Jesus as Messiah. I’d say it
was a pretty good day for the Church and, as a result, a great day for
Jerusalem and for all the Children of Israel.
In
the year 2000, Israeli/Palestinian tensions erupted into a full-scale intifada.
Things got very bad in Israel and it was no longer safe for anyone. After 4
years of suicide bombings by the Palestinians, targeting Jews and Jewish
businesses, a member of the Israeli Parliament, Yuri Shtern, a Russian born Jew
with a journalism background, launched an effort known at the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, the CAC as it is
known today.
I,
along with several representatives of
Christian based main-line denominations were invited on an all expense
paid trip to Israel to meet with members of Parliament to discuss how we might
partner together to raise awareness, support and ultimately help to curb the
violence and restore peace to Jerusalem. I was invited as a representative for
inter-denominational and non-denominational Churches. Since there is no one
covering organization under which all independent Churches operate, Church On
The Rock was chosen to be that voice.
It
intrigued me to hear members of the Knesset along with the former Prime
Ministers and Presidents of Israel, speak of the positive impact Christianity had
on people who convert. We were given examples of former militant Palestinians
who were committed to the destruction of Israel and willing to become a suicide
bomber right up to the moment that some Christian witnessed to them about Jesus
and they were saved. The testimonies of people who changed from being committed
to Israel’s destruction to becoming supporters of the Jewish State’s right to
exist, and from hating Jews to loving them, all because of a personal encounter
with Jesus Christ through what was freely described as their “Born-Again”
experience, was amazing.
In
that initial meeting and several subsequent meetings and visits over the next
decade, I was asked to present a strong Christian witness to Palestinians
within the borders of Israel. In 2006 I with the mayor of Jerusalem who asked
me to please start a Church On The Rock Church in Jerusalem. He offered to
provide me with a building and all the support needed to make it happen. His
hope was that we could provide a great witness to the Arab-Israeli population
of greater Jerusalem and see them become Bible-Believing Christians.
He
then took the pin which he was wearing on his suit lapel and pinned it on mine,
gave me a kiss on each cheek, and asked for our help. What help did he hope
for? He believed that if radical Palestinians would become Christians, they
would change their hearts and minds about Israel, and they would no longer be
enemies of the Jews.
The
poof of the pudding is in the taste of the pudding. It’s true, the end result
of people being Born-Again is that they become a blessing, not a curse; a
benefit, not a terror; a supporter, not a destroyer. However, in order to keep
the religious leaders content, the CAC requests were limited to asking Churches
to focus their witness on Arabs, not Jews. Witnessing and converting Jews as
Born-Again Believers has never been popular … and at times, completely
intolerable for the religious leaders. It is now and it was in the days of
Peter and John.
5 ¶ And it came to pass, on
the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes,
6 as well as Annas the high
priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the
high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem.
7 And when they had set them
in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the
Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel:
Listen,
if the you are aggravated when pray harder, fast longer, worship more often trying
to get people saved, healed, restored and right with God then you may need to
be saved yourself. Come on, either join them or leave them alone. But for
goodness sake, don’t judge them, make fun of them or try to stop them … they
might be praying for you!
9 “If we this day are judged
for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made
well,
10 “let it be known to you
all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man
stands here before you whole.
11 “This is the ‘stone which
was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’
12 “Nor is there salvation in
any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we
must be saved.”
13 Now when they saw the
boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and
untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
14 And seeing the man who had
been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
Don’t
you love that! I’d preach right but there is no way I could say it any better
than it has already been said and written in the Bible for us to read. Let’s
continue:
15 ¶ But when they had
commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
16 saying, “What shall we do
to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is
evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
17 “But so that it spreads no
further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they
speak to no man in this name.”
18 And they called them and
commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John
answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen
to you more than to God, you judge.
20 “For we cannot but speak
the things which we have seen and heard.”
21 So when they had further
threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of
the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done.
Whether
it is right in the sight of God to listen to men more than to God, you judge.
But, as for us, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
