Spiritcode

Insiders and Outsidrs

INSIDERS and OUTSIDERS

We finished reading in Acts chapter five with the account of the apostles rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. They continued preaching daily in the temple and proclaiming to all the people this new way of life, which was not just about doing what they were meant to do but about being who they were meant to be. We follow the account of the growth of the emerging church as we come to Chapter six.
 
ACTS 6:1. It was not long before the number of disciples had greatly increased, and the Hellenists (Greek speaking Jews), developed a grudge against the Hebrews. The Greek widows were being neglected in the common daily provision of food and necessary supplies.

Hellenists were the people influenced by ancient Greece with its culture and language and philosophy which all began in the fourth century BC. when Alexander the Great conquered the then known world including Judea. 
Many thousands of Jews were scattered all over the Mediterranean coastal areas and up into Asia Minor, where over a period of time they began to practice a code of Judaism that became even stricter than it was back in Jerusalem. 

Then the Romans conquered all these nations in 65 BC, and Hellenistic Jews were made slaves - but in due time they were set free and became known as the Freedmen. 
The Hellenist Freedmen that we come across in Acts chapter six were descendants of the people that were made slaves by the Romans two generations earlier, and these people worshipped in their own synagogues in Jerusalem. Many traditional Jews back in Jerusalem viewed Greek culture as a threat to their religious identity and resisted Hellenistic influences - thus the underlying conflict.

In the last few chapters, we have been seeing how love was flourishing in this new community of faith. All was good in the new emerging Church, full of power and love - until things went wrong - an act of ‘unlove’ occurred. The widows who were of Greek, or Hellenistic origin were being neglected in the previously ‘loving’ act of the sharing of food and provision amongst the family of God. 
It seemed like it was easier for them to love those that were ethnically and religiously most like themselves and to ignore those that were different. 
This was probably not done on purpose – but it was certainly an act of neglect, and an offence had occurred. 

The Apostles wisely saw this problem as a leadership responsibility, and they dealt with it as such. The solution that the twelve came up with was not to preach against complaining on the one side, or against selfishness on the other side. They had to bring some structure into the administrative side of things so that the people could be more mindful that God was among them, and more alert to the needs of those who were perhaps on the fringe. The offence could be avoided with simple uncomplicated relational and relaxed structures. 

2. The twelve apostles called a meeting of all the believers and addressed the entire assembly to resolve the matter. They explained that it was not up to them to become hands on in the fair distribution of food and goods for the needy and so neglect their ministry in the word of God.
3. So they directed the other disciples to choose from among all the believers, seven upright and honest men who were recognized for their integrity and who were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. They said they would appoint those men to look after such matters as these.
4. The Apostles explained to the people that they had to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of teaching the word.
5. The entire company of believers were happy with that arrangement. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a Gentile from Antioch, who was earlier converted to Judaism.
6. They presented these men to the apostles, who first prayed about the choice that had been made, then laid hands on those men and commissioned them.

Nowhere does it say that they were called ‘Deacons’ but it is presumed that these were the ‘first Deacons’. They were also great evangelists – as we see at least in the ministries of Stephen and Philip. This allowed the Apostles to attend to the priority of their calling, of prayer and the ministry of the word. This is the first instance of the doctrine of the laying on of hands for the impartation of grace and appointment to certain callings in the newfound Church. There were wonderful results coming out of that wise decision, as the next verse goes on to say. 

7. Then the word of the Lord spread and reached many, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and many Jewish priests became obedient to the faith.

Nicholas was a Hellenist, being described as ‘Nicholas, a Gentile from Antioch, who was earlier converted to Judaism’, and he no doubt was a good choice in helping the inclusion of some of the outsiders. 
We now see the account of one of these seven men, Stephen, going forth in faith and power, with great wonders and signs following his ministry.

8. Stephen, full of faith and empowered by the Holy Spirit, worked great wonders and miracles among the people.
9. Some of the members of the synagogue of the Freedmen, including men from Cyrene (the home of Simon who carried the cross for Jesus) and Alexandria, and Cilicia (the homeland of Saul of Tarsus) and Asia. They then began to formally debate with Stephen, but they could not prevail against the wisdom of his arguments and the power of the Spirit in his words.

Opposition to Stephen mostly came from those of the ‘Synagogue of the Freedmen’, which was understandable because of their passionate intensity of obedience to the code of the Law and their disapproving perception of the slackness of the traditional Jerusalem Jews. Saul, as well as being a Pharisee was also considered to be a Hellenist with a depth of understanding for the Greek philosophies and culture, and he also would have been involved with their Hellenist synagogue in Jerusalem, and this would also explain his intense condemnation of Stephen. It is evident that he was present for the events surrounding Stephen's trial and execution which we read about in chapters seven and eight, and it is probable that, as a student of the great Gamaliel, he even participated in heated debates with Stephen in the temple.

11. So they (the Freedmen and other Jewish leaders) coaxed men to testify that they had heard him speak blasphemously against Moses and against God, 12. Stirring up hostility against Stephen amongst the people and the Jewish elders who arrested him and brought him before the council.

God had purposed tribalism for Israel because they were a chosen nation that God had laid claim to as his own, forbidding them to mix with other nations, and dealing with their infidelity when they did - They had no choice. Israel as a Nation for 1500 years was the representative of Humanity as a ‘People under God’. They were not to let the outside world in and they thought that meant forever, even though God directed them to welcome the sojourner within their gates – perhaps a foretaste of things to come.

So, into this large flourishing powerful happy church in Jerusalem there began to appear those who were not perhaps regarded as the insiders that that they should be. Many would have remembered Jesus telling the disciples when he sent them out two by two that they were not to go and preach to the Gentiles (Matthew 29). We also see in Acts chapter nine that Peter had great difficulty in going and preaching to the Gentile Centurion Cornelius and his Gentile family. 
God always makes space for a fringe to exist and even though the Hellenists were Jews they were different enough to seem like being a fringe group. This same Tribalism exists today even in Christianity as evidenced by thirty six thousand Protestant denominations, and other religious, and cultural prejudices. All of us in one way or another have experienced being on the fringe – an outsider – what’s going on in there! 
The church in the Book of Acts did not yet understand that Jesus had brought all of humanity into Himself. 
 
How wonderfully strange that the soon to be ‘Paul the Apostle’ now starts to appear on the horizon of God’s plan of salvation for the world.

13. And they instructed these witnesses who said that Stephen had also consistently spoken blasphemously against the holy temple and against the law. 14. They said they had even heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth was going to destroy the holy temple and change the traditions handed down to them by Moses.
15. The council members took Stephen before them to interrogate him and as they questioned him they found themselves gazing at his face which began to shine like the face of an angel.

These were the Jewish opponents who we read about in the next chapter who laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul before they stoned Stephen to death – the Saul that was the soon to become ‘Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles’. In the next chapter we read about Saul hearing the most extraordinary revelation of the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ to the world through Stephen. This revelation that Saul/Paul resisted that day was ordained to come to the Jews first, and then somehow to the whole world – beginning with himself!

This is the Paul who later wrote ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (Galatians 3:28).
No more insiders and outsiders!

Going back to the offence that occurred in the early church where some people felt like ‘outsiders’ who were being overlooked – it shows how easy it is to create division and conflict even when you’re not trying to. We read in verse twelve above the angry and influential people who ‘stirred up hostility against Stephen amongst the people and the Jewish elders.’ This is how a political power agenda seeks to usurp power and influence for their own gain, by causing resentment and division and hostility within a community or group, setting ordinary people against one another. 

When this happens on a large scale it can have global consequences, and it is happening now. We live in times when there seems to be an agenda managed by influential political power brokers of creating a world full of resentful victims that feel badly treated by anybody who is not passionate about constantly affirming their personal special interests. An activist media that trades in conflict, outrage and sensation coaxes voluntary victims into fueling a revolution against an unkown group of hateful non-inclusive oppressors. This spirit of polarization permeates the soul of our society. 

The true enemy is the spirit of blindness over people today, not the feverish people who have been blinded. God wants to reach these people and he is working with you, not to fight a political or religious war against them but to reach them. There is enough love and grace and faith in God’s people today to overcome any of this blindness, firstly within the Church itself, and there is also an abounding grace to hear the cry of distress and to open the eyes of a conflicted world that has never felt so hopeless. 

Philippians 2:14 stay away from complaining and arguing so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. Live God-ordered lives as God’s children in a dark world full of people who are biased and wilful. Shine among them like lights, holding out to them the Word of Life. 

 

 

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD 

We saw in the preceding verses of Acts chapter five how there was such an outpouring of grace and faith through the power of the Holy Spirit working in the church with healings and signs and wonders and the good will of the people in going without, so that they could care for one another’s needs. We also saw how in the example of the judgement upon Ananias and Saphira that there was also great accountability to the Holy Spirit for all that grace and power. 
Crowds were streaming in from the Jerusalem suburbs, bringing their sick folk and those oppressed by evil spirits and every one of them was healed …
And all of this finally caused an angry reaction from the Jewish religious leaders.

Reading on in Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5:17. The high priest and the entire Sadducee group became very indignant. They took hold of the apostles and locked them up in jail.
19. However the angel of The Lord opened up the prison doors and set them free and told them to go and stand in the temple and proclaim to all the people this new way of life.
21. So, upon hearing that, they went into the temple the first thing in the morning and began to teach. At the same time the high priest and all his supporters convened the council and the senate of Israel and decided to send for the prisoners to be brought to them from the prison. But the prison officers went to the prison and found that they were no longer there. So they went back to the council and senate. They told them that the prison was shut securely, and the soldiers were on guard outside the prison doors, but that when they opened the doors, they found that there was nobody there.

24. When the high priests and all the other religious officials heard about this they began to wonder where all this was heading. Then someone came and told them all that the men they had put into prison were back in the temple again, preaching to the people.

The high priest and his other Sadducee officials rejected any belief in the resurrection or angels or other supernatural signs from God. Their religious beliefs were focused on the strict interpretation of the written Torah. But now they were stumped because there were supernatural things happening all around them and they were getting anxious. But this was actually an act of mercy and grace for them also because God was giving these religious leaders a chance to witness God’s power and accept the truth of the Gospel. This brought the high priest and the leaders face to face with reality and an accountability to truth, not to mention the hostility of the multitudes who were being persuaded of the power and glory of God.

26. So the captains and officers of the temple went and discreetly removed the apostles from the place, treating them gently because they were afraid that they might end up getting stoned by the people.
27. They set the apostles before the council and the high priest, and he began to question them; He reminded them that they had been forbidden to teach anything in that name, charging them that they had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine, and were even planning to bring the blood guilt of Jesus upon them.

Somewhere in their strangely superstitious yet unbelieving minds they were anxious that a curse of blood guilt would be cast upon them. Religious superstition and legalism  is a curse in itself, as it cuts off the flow of spiritual blessing (Galatians 1:9).

29. Peter and the other apostles reiterated; ‘We have to obey God rather than men.’

30. The God of our ancestors resurrected Jesus, whom you put to death upon a cross.
31. God has given him the most exalted of all positions, as the Prince and Saviour of Israel to give them a new heart and mind and total cancellation of all their sins.
32. We are witnesses of all of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has bestowed upon all that become subject to his authority.

33. When the religious leaders of Israel heard that they were infuriated, and they determined to put them to death.
34. Then Gamaliel, one of the Pharisees of the council, who was a teacher and interpreter of the Law, and held in high esteem among the people, commanded that the apostles be detained outside of the meeting for the time being. 

Gamaliel was a Pharisee and unlike the Sadducees he did believe in a resurrection. He was also the tutor of Paul when he was a Pharisee. Paul mentions that he sat at the feet of Gamaliel in Acts 22:3. 

Gamaliel then addressed the meeting and said: ‘Be careful, you leaders of Israel, about what you do with these men, because it was not so long ago that Theudas gave himself some kind of self-appointed significance and gathered a following of some four hundred men. He ended up being killed and all his followers were scattered, and it all came to nothing. Then another self-appointed ruler called Judas of Galilee rose up, in the days of the taxing, and he also had quite a crowd following him. He died too, and his followers were scattered. So what I am telling you all is that you should leave these men alone, because if what they have been saying and what they have been doing is just the work of men, it will come to nothing; 

39. But if it is of God, you are powerless to stop it; and you will find yourselves fighting against God himself.’

40. They listened to what Gamaliel had to say and they agreed. So they called the apostles back, had them beaten, and commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then let them go. The apostles left the council and went on their way, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus and they continued to teach and preach about Jesus Christ every day in the temple, and in all the houses round about the region.

Peter’s words earlier in the chapter were “We ought to obey God rather than men.’ (vs29).
They were appointed to preach the Gospel and they had to obey God even if it meant breaking a civil law. The Gospel that they preached was powerful and it was confirmed by God in an undeniably supernatural way. It was therefore a threat to the religious and civil power base of the day. It was more than just speech that was unpopular or offensive to the rights or special interests of others in the community.

They were quite happy to suffer the consequences of disobeying the law of man in order to obey God. It was up to God to either set them free by sending an angel or to let them stay there for however long he wanted them to be there. They knew they were doing God’s work wherever they were. Paul spent a long time ‘doing time’ in jail for God, knowing that God had ordained it, but if God had wanted him to escape confinement God would organize it, as we see in Acts chapter nine when Paul first started preaching in Damascus after being converted and was confined inside the city - his friends lowered him down a wall in a basket to escape being killed by those hostile to his preaching. God works all of these things out his way – it is his Gospel, and his power.

Paul spoke about this principle of obeying God first even if you go to jail for it, when he wrote to the Roman church ‘Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities’ (Romans 13:1,also 1Peter 2:13 ; submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake’). 
A person can obey God first and also be subject to the governing authorities even when they disobey a civil law as long as they accept the legal consequences of it in the civil courts. It is then put into God’s hands. 
 
There are Christians preaching the Gospel today in countries where it is illegal to do so, and they cannot lobby the government about freedom of speech to preach because they don’t get to vote. In a Western democracy Christians today lobby the government for legalizing freedom of speech to further the work of the Gospel, the way that they feel sincere about - and they can feel irate if they are denied this freedom. As Christians people can vote as citizens in a democracy with the hope that their sincere requests for freedom of speech for their cause will be granted, and if it is they rejoice, but there is no guarantee from God. Faith is not about wishful thinking or political power. There was never any politically sanctioned freedom of speech in the Book of Acts.  

But if you really have a Gospel of power, and not just a political opinion about your religious rights or your self-importance it doesn’t matter what the government of the day is - nobody can stop the power of the Gospel from going forth and accomplishing what God intends for it to achieve. This might bring about distressing opposition and personal suffering but being counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ in this way releases great power from Heaven - and it brings about God’s outcomes for his glory. When people fight against God, God wins.

 

 

 

SIGNS OF THE SACRED

SIGNS OF THE SACRED
The phenomenon of the power of gracious giving that occurred in Acts chapter four where they had ‘all things in common’ was a sign that God had poured out great grace and faith upon the people that displayed itself in a love and care for one another in their differing needs. The last verse in Acts chapter four says ‘Joseph, called by the apostles "Barnabas" (which means "Son of Comfort"), a Levite born in Cyprus, sold a field that he owned, brought the money, and made an offering of it to the apostles. This would indicate that he would have kept his house and any necessities for his upkeep and donated the proceeds of selling a field. That intense outpouring of grace lasted for a limited period of time and appears to have not been seen since. These early chapters of Acts show the contest of the mighty activity of the grace and power of the kingdom of God over and against the power of the world. Reading on in Chapter five…

ACTS 5:1. But a man named Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, who connived with him, sold a piece of land, and secretly kept 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 do a thing 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 and buried him. 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 was the price." Peter responded, "What's going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Lord? 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. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.

When there is a great grace and faith through the power of the Holy Spirit there is also great accountability to the Holy Spirit for that grace. Such was the accountability in the case of Ananias and Saphira that eternal judgement came upon them through the apostle Peter because of their lying to the Holy Spirit. That grace and power and authority is not resident in the Church today. The Bible says to us for you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6).The difference between being under the Law in the Old Testament and being under Grace in the New Testament might at first appear to mean that judgment is less harsh in the New Testament. However the power given to those people in the Book of Acts through the grace of the indwelling empowerment of the Ho]y Spirit required a far greater accountability for obedience than being under the Law and commandants in the Old Testament. Grace is the power that enables us to do God’s will. Grace is not a soft pretext for not doing God’s will.
This act of judgment had a very profound effect on people still in the process of making up their minds whether to ’join the Church’ or not (Vs.11)

12. And through the ministry of the apostles many signs and wonders were done amongst the people, who continued to gather together in great unity of heart and mind in the covered portico inside Solomon’s temple. Unbelievers did not dare try to join the body of believers (I wonder why not!). They just looked on and marveled at them. When people look on and marvel at something spectacular it is more like watching a side show – it is not worshipping God.
It is interesting that the display of God’s power drew many into the Kingdom of God as believers but was resisted by many who did not want the control of their own lifestyles interfered with, especially when it comes to money - the universal power and control agency. That power and control is very easily corrupted, as we all well know. 
13. However multitudes of people, both men and women, became believers through all of this and were added to the Lord.
But those who did believe had such a need for God in their needy lives that they wanted to be anywhere that the glory of God was on display, and they became worshippers.

15. Such was their faith that they brought sick people out into the streets and laid them on stretchers in the hope that the shadow of Peter walking past might overshadow them. Many people also came out of the towns round about Jerusalem, bringing sick people who were afflicted by evil spirits and they were all healed.

It does not say that the shadow of Peter actually caused the healing but something was happening in people’s hearts in drawing them near to God in their heartfelt desire to be touched by the power of God, so faith began to operate. It was like the Gentile woman who pushed through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed, and Jesus felt her faith in operation within his Spirit. And he commended her for her great faith. There are many incidences of these signs of external sacred things that evoke faith in the hearts of people who want to draw near to God in faith. The word sacred (hieros) means dedicated or consecrated to God, holy. The word sacred is where we get the word sacrament from, as in the sacrament of Communion. 

When James recommended that elders anoint those who were sick with oil he said ‘let the elders pray over them, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will heal/save (sozo) the sick (James 5:14). It is not the oil that heals or the garment of Jesus that heals or Peter’s shadow – it is faith. James also said in the same chapter ‘draw near to God and he will draw near to you.’ These occurrences were all occasions or opportunities for drawing near to God so that faith in the work of Jesus could be found. It was not to point to the sacred object but to Jesus. 
It is only when people attribute power to the object or to some person that it becomes superstition, something like magical thinking, and a lot of that thrived in those days and continues to do so. But sacred objects have served their purpose, if only to draw our hearts to desire to draw near to Jesus in faith, but not to be worshipped in themselves. We see these sacred signs further on in Acts and in the epistles.
 
Acts 19:11 God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.

Most people would have believed in Jesus for those handkerchief healings but there would have been some people who may have attributed the power to the handkerchiefs, and others may have attributed the power to Paul. And at the same time that was happening in Acts 19, there were some men present, called the sons of Sceva, that saw what was going on. They tried casting out demons in the name of Jesus that Paul had been proclaiming. They thought that they could evoke that power to cast out demons by using the name of Paul and the name of Jesus and it backfired on them, because the demon answered them, and said “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” The evil spirit then jumped on them and beat them up. They were using the name of God (and Paul) in vain. Just using the name of Jesus is not faith unless one has a living faith in the life of Jesus within them that is working God’s will through them by his grace.

Paul writes to Timothy and says ‘from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings of the Scriptures, (Old Testament) which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’. (2Timothy 3:15). The Scriptures are indeed sacred but notice here that the active key phrase is ‘through faith in Christ Jesus’, because faith comes through the Spirit of the word and not the letter. The words must impart the living faith of those that speak it, and the Holy Spirit can impart spiritual life and witness to the word as a person reads it.

Some people believe that there is supernatural power resident in the bread and wine of what is called the Sacrament of Holy Communion. But the power is entirely of our faith in drawing near to God in remembrance of Who Jesus is and what he has done for us and what he is doing for us in the here and now – that is faith and that is our Communion with Jesus and with one another as we gather and partake of the bread and the cup. The grace of God is present and to be called upon, as we give thanks for the presence of God with us, and for the blessing and healing of body, soul and spirit upon each other. Amen

All Things in Common

ALL THINGS IN COMMON 
In the second half of Acts chapter 4 Peter and John were set free from custody by the council of Jewish leaders for preaching in the power of the name of Jesus and miraculously healing the crippled man at the temple. This had caused thousands of people to join themselves to the Church, and the religious and the secular power base of the Jewish leaders was now even more threatened, but they had no option to letting them go because of the fervour of the crowd’s recognition of the power of God. 

Reading on in chapter four.
Acts 4:23. When they were released, they went back to their friends and told them everything that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When their fellow disciples heard that, they began to speak out with one voice to God. They prayed ‘Lord you are God, who has made the Heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that exists. This is who David was talking about when he said ‘Why do people get into such an uproar and fill their minds with useless ideas?’ World leaders give themselves a high and mighty place and plan together to outdo God and outshine his anointed Christ. The same way that Herod and Pontius Pilate, with both Israel and all the unbelievers opposed the holy child, Jesus when he did what you Lord, had decided to achieve through him, according to your own will and purpose.
 And Lord, look at what they are doing now. Give us, who want to serve you, courage and confidence to speak out your word. And confirm your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and let signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy child Jesus. 
When they finished that prayer the place where they were praying began to shake. 
Vs.31. They were all filled with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and they went from there speaking out the word of God with great confidence.

The disciples were ecstatic to realize that God was in charge of everything that happened in the world and that no secular power could stand against God and topple the power of his Kingdom. This new Kingdom was not reliant upon political power or money to influence or to overcome the power of the world – only the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers would win that victory. They knew that the plans of world leaders to outdo God and outshine his anointed Christ’ would eventually fail. After they prayed for the power of God to come upon them they went out confidently speaking the anointed word of God that the Holy Spirit spoke into their hearts and minds - by direct revelation of the living words to them either from Jesus directly, or words that were written in the Law and the Prophets that were revelations of the life of Jesus as the Christ (As yet there was no New Testament narrative).

Three hundred years after this mighty explosion of the power of the Kingdom of God the Church became a secular power under the rule of the Roman emperor Constantine and from then on a secular and political Papal power ruled that kingdom/empire alongside other secular political powers. However, there has always been a river of life flowing through believers whose faith has lifted them into living in the power of the Kingdom of God. The reformation brought great spiritual change but did nothing to change the political status of the Church and simply divided believers up into other existing secular states and regions. 
Let our prayer be like those of the disciples in the Book of Acts. ‘And Lord, look at what they are doing now. Give us, who want to serve you, courage and confidence to speak out your word. And confirm your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and let signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy child Jesus. They were all filled with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and they went from there speaking out the word of God with great confidence.

We read in the next verse about another phenomenon of the power of God in their midst which was the loving care that believers demonstrated towards those who were in need.
Vs.32. All the believers were of one heart and mind, and no one felt that what he owned was his own; everyone was sharing. And the apostles preached powerful sermons about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and there was warm fellowship among all the believers, and no poverty—for all who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles to give to others in need. This was the fruit of the Spirit of faith that worked through love – there was no legalism involved.

The only attempt in history to establish a system of economic equity or egalitarianism was Marxist Communism which tried to create a classless society and abolish private ownership of property and private businesses and production. Its ideological slogan was ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. It swept up millions of people in the 20th century in Russia and eastern Europe and China and other parts of Asia and it was born out of the anger and resentment of oppressed people against a powerful wealthy class – not out of love and compassion. 
This revolution led to bloodshed and war and failed in every aspect of its ideological slogan. Over 100 million lives were lost during that time because of tyrannical State leadership. Forms of this kind of social justice are tragically imposing themselves upon our present culture as neo Marxism which has expanded the categories of victims of oppression that that the so called ruling class exercises - making everyone a victim including whatever the ruling class is.

There is only one other place in the Bible that depicts the kind of unity and Godly equity of sharing that is seen in Acts chapter 4. It is seen in the Book of Nehemiah. It portrays the caring and sharing of our God given giftings and anointings that bring grace and blessing instead of resentment and coercion. And it is not just about money. 
When God’s people were released from their seventy-year oppressive bondage in Babylon many returned to Jerusalem over a period of some years, to rebuild the city and the temple. Ninety years after the first migration back a prophet named Nehemiah who was still living in Babylon/Persia received news from his Jewish brothers back in Jerusalem that the city was still in ruins and its walls still broken down. He grieves and weeps over this and prays to God for guidance and favour. God gives him favour in the eyes of King Artaxerxes where he held a high position in the king’s court, and the king sends him back to rebuild the city, appointing him as the Persian/Jewish Governor of Judah.

But when Nehemiah first arrived and did a thorough survey of what was going on he became disappointed and angry when he saw some unfair treatment to the poor and the vulnerable where many of the poorer families in Judah had to mortgage fields and vineyards and borrow money at high interest from their Jewish brothers who were nobles and officials. 
So Nehemiah took action, and he admonished the nobles and officials and told them that what they were doing was not good in the eyes of God. The people changed their hearts in the fear of the Lord and began to share together in caring for one another in each other’s needs.
Nehemiah was then able to inspire the Jewish people to work together with a new kind of spiritual unity where families and groups were assigned to sections of the wall and everyone gave of their energy and their different skills, with a sword by their side and ready to defend each other against enemy attacks. And this brought great blessing from God upon them all.

That story of the rebuilding of the city and the walls of Jerusalem and God’s house, the temple, speaks to us today of God wanting to build us together as his spiritual Jerusalem and spiritual temple, not just the timber and stones and building materials. The Bible says that you yourselves are like living stones being built up as his spiritual house (1 Peter 2:4). So let that temple be rebuilt – yours first – you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and he wants to tell you what Jesus wants you to hear in the temple - your temple - your house of prayer (1Corinthians 6:19). This is what those early disciples expected to hear, and they heard God speak to them and they spoke it out and God confirmed. 

One feature of Nehemiah’s rebuilding process was the re-using of the rubble as repurposed building material instead of discarding it as damaged useless debris. For us this represents the Holy Spirit putting back together the fragmented parts of ourselves that were damaged because of affliction and loss and are now being transformed into something valuable and meaningful through the healing power of the Holy Spirit. I see this healing and salvation of the soul happening in people’s lives. God restores lost and damaged things and transforms them into new things that hold a future and a hope.
Let us be God’s temple individually and as God’s gathered people today as we sit in his presence.
2Chronicles 6:29 whatever prayer or plea is made by anyone or by all your people, each knowing their own affliction and their own sorrow and stretching out their hands in this temple, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart you know, according to their own pathways, for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of mankind. AMEN.

 

If I Be Lifted Up

IF I BE LIFTED UP 
In Acts chapter three we saw that Peter and John had prayed for the healing of a well-known crippled man who used to beg daily at the gate of the temple and was now leaping about and praising God. A crowd of onlookers continued to grow with all of them standing about amazed at the miracle that had occurred, and Peter was preaching to the growing crowd about the resurrection of Jesus.
Acts 4: 1. While they were still speaking to the people, the priests and the Temple Captain and the Sadducees stormed in. They were offended and worked up that Peter was preaching to the people, and teaching about the resurrection from the dead through Jesus - so they arrested Peter and John and put them in custody until the next day because it was now time for the evening watch in the temple. However, many of the people had already heard the word being preached, and about five thousand people had now become believers (WOW). Then the next morning, the rulers and elders and scribes and Annas the high priest and Caiaphas, and the family group of the high priest came together for a meeting at Jerusalem. They stood Peter and John before them and began to question them. They asked by what power and under whose name or authority had they performed this healing. Peter was full of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and he said; ‘All you rulers and elders of Israel, if this is some investigation into what caused this wonderful thing to happen to this weak and crippled man I want to inform you all, and indeed all the people of Israel, that this man stands before you totally healed today through the power and the authority of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified - and whom God raised up from the dead. Salvation comes through no other person, or through any other name under heaven. Through him alone are we saved.’  When they saw the fearless confidence of Peter and John, who were ordinary looking men and obviously uneducated, they were astonished. They recognized them as being among the disciples of Jesus. Then when they looked at the totally healed man standing there next to them, there was nothing left for them to say. However when they dismissed them under guard from the council they began to discuss the matter among themselves and they said to one another ‘What are we to do with these men? It is obvious to everybody in Jerusalem that an undeniable miracle has occurred, but we cannot let this spread any further amongst the people, so we had better warn them severely that they are absolutely forbidden to speak to anybody in that name. So they called Peter and John back in again and forbade them to say anything to anybody or to teach anything in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John said ‘You judge for yourselves whether it is right for us to listen to what God says or to listen to what you say but we can only say what we have truly seen and heard.’ So they threatened them and warned them once again and then they let them go. They realized that they could not punish them for any wrongdoing in front of all those people, because all the people were glorifying God for what had been done.

This was the first example of ‘cancel culture’ in the Bible. The power base of the leaders of Israel had been massively threatened, so the leaders had to put a stop to Peter and John’s preaching to the crowds about the power of Jesus, but they couldn’t deny the power. The Jewish leaders had crucified Jesus but that had not stopped the power and authority from working through his name from Heaven. They wanted to put down the name of Jesus and Peter was determined to lift him up (today people in the world use the name of Jesus almost as much as God’s people – they use it as a swear word and we use it as a word of praise – one way puts him down and the other way lifts him up. Jesus himself had said that if he was lifted up he would draw all men unto himself, and when Peter lifted him up that day the Jewish leaders had seen five thousand people get drawn to Jesus before their very eyes.
Jesus said to a man called Nicodemus, a prominent Jewish leader who came to visit him one night, ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him would have eternal life’ [John 3:15]. Nicodemus had come to acknowledge that Jesus was indeed from God, saying that no one could do those signs if God wasn’t with him. Jesus went on to say to Nicodemus that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus knew that Nicodemus was a learned teacher of the Jews, and he knew that he would be very familiar with the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

That story is in the Book of Numbers chapter twenty one and it describes how the Israelites were journeying through the wilderness after being freed from slavery in Egypt, and they grew impatient and began complaining against God and Moses, expressing their discontent with the food and water in the wilderness. They even said ‘and we hate this boring manna’. So God sent poisonous snakes among them to punish them, and many of them suffered by being bitten and many died. The people came to their senses and approached Moses, confessing their wrongdoing and asking for help and for God to take away the snakes. In response, God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole and to lift it high (bronze in the Bible speaks of judgment) - then anyone who had been bitten by a snake would simply look at the bronze serpent and be healed.

Nicodemus would have understood the meaning of the poisonous serpents, and their comparison with the serpent that God allowed into the garden and who poisoned the hearts and minds of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That serpent tempted Adam and Eve to become discontent with God’s provision for them and to want something that their deceived imaginations told them would satisfy them better. The soul of humanity was poisoned that day and from that time forward mankind has lived with the discontent of never having enough and of life never having enough meaning or purpose.

Jesus took the place of that bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness and when he is lifted up in our hearts and minds, he heals our souls from the poison of the darkness that deceives our minds and hearts. And he gets rid of the snakes so that in trusting in him we can be protected from evil.
All the people had to do in the wilderness was to look at the serpent. They didn’t have to do a dance or offer sacrifices – just simply look.

For us this means that we simply perceive and believe in our hearts and minds that Jesus has taken away the judgment of our sins and given us his life to heal our souls because of all the wrong choices that we have made that have caused us so much suffering and anxiety, and robbed our souls of meaning and purpose. Jesus said to Nicodemus that whoever believes in him should not perish (apollymi) but have eternal life - perishing means wasted, ruined, not fit for purpose. Perishing is being stuck in a life that lacks meaning and purpose here on earth – that is being lost and destroyed - and the opposite of perishing and being lost and destroyed is being saved in our souls.

Jesus also said to Nicodemus ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’.

We don’t have to look at a serpent or a statue or anything else. For us to look at Jesus means to fix and focus our hearts and minds upon him as the highest who came to be with the lowest. So our minds humbly ask God to reveal to us who Jesus is, who loves us and died for us and desires to live within us. And our hearts wait in surrender to be drawn closer into loving relationship with him.

As we sit in his presence today we will ask the the things of earth to grow stranhely dim. We can see Jesus in a room through a window and we can go in and sit with him and ask things of earth stay outside. We sit with Jesus and turn our eyes of faith upon him - things of earth might tap on the window and want to come in but you can close the curtain and ask Holy Spirit to help you hear from Jesus in your mind and in your heart. 

Healing Rain of Revival

HEALING RAIN REVIVAL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT  

When Peter said on the Day of Pentecost that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was what the prophet Joel was speaking about, he quoted from Joel - ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh (all people). That is what happened. That was the start of the ‘last days’ outpouring, but Peter did not quote what Joel finally said in his prophecy about the end of the last days outpouring of his Spirit. Joel said that a greater outpouring of his Spirit would precede the event of ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’ The Holy Spirit did not tell Peter to quote that part about the end-time final outpouring because that was not the time of the Lord’s second coming, so there is a gap of time between the first outpouring and the final greater outpouring and we are still living in that time gap.

Joel does explain the gap between the two outpourings however when he compares the outpouring of the Spirit to the falling of the former and latter rains upon the earth that occurred every year agriculturally for Israel. Every year there was a long period of the dry months from one harvest festival to the next, when the land weathered and became hardened, and it needed a moderate former rain to fall to soften the earth before sowing and then there would be a latter rain that would ripen the crop before harvesting. Joel says in his prophecy that the final outpouring of God’s Spirit would bring both former and latter rains to come at the same time - He has appointed you the former rain moderately, And He will cause the former rain and the latter rain to come down in the same month. That Is a double portion outpouring.

It is clear that we have not seen the final great and awesome day of the Lord – and we have not seen the final and great outpouring of the Spirit, even though we have had times of refreshing and revivals through many former rain outpourings of God’s Spirit since Pentecost. When the former and latter rains fall upon us in their due time as a double portion of the Holy Spirit the former rain will soften the hearts of people and the latter rain will ripen the fruit of the Spirit of love and peace and joy and bring healing to our souls.

The story in Joel about God’s people going their own way and then being drawn back to God is the archetype or the model of our journey of life for all of us as individuals. We start off on the right track relatively speaking, and then we make our way on our own journey with our own ideas of what is best for us, despite what anyone else’s version is of what we should do. That can get us into trouble and grief – we make wrong choices through lack of wisdom, and we also get wounded through lack of understanding about relationships - and our heart can become hardened over time and the seed of God’s word of life cannot penetrate it – the seasons of dryness of the heart. Sometimes God has to break up that parched weathered ground with tough love (the dealings of a loving Father God), but his preferred remedy is his mercy and grace in sending the rain of the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts and draw us back to himself. 

The book of Hosea is also a story of both Israel and the Church as God’s people who go through times of falling away from God and being made desolate - and they too then turn back to God in their time of affliction and are revived. God says to Israel after they have been stubbornly going astray that he is going to leave them to themselves to go their own way and that he will go and return to his place (Heaven) - and that In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. 

Hosea 5:15 God says, I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense.
Then they will seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. And then they will say "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us but he will heal us; he has afflicted us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going from us is established as the morning, and He will come to us like the rain, like the former and latter rain to the earth.

Hosea is also talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Joel spoke of. 
When God left Israel and returned to his place (Heaven) he was giving them time to consider their ways in their afflictions and to seek his face and return to him. In due course Israel will receive the healing of their souls from the former and latter rains of the Holy Spirit so that they can be revived and live in his presence.

The last time that God said to his people that he would return and go to his place was when Jesus spoke to his disciples before his ascension into Heaven.
John 14:2 I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also… the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you… These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world… My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.
 
The great and awesome day of the Lord is always getting closer no matter when you say it but we're living in days when there are worse things happening in the world than ever before. We will see not only more darkness and tribulation in the earth than ever before, but I have an expectation to see more spiritual activity of the Holy Spirit than we have seen before in past visitations of God since Pentecost, and I believe we're in the beginnings of that right now. Too many good words have been spoken and have fallen on deaf ears and hard hearts, but the works of God are going to become more manifest and that will open people’s eyes and give them ears that are ready to hear in the days in which we live. And while the double portion of healing rains is softening the wounded hearts the fruit of the Spirit will speedily become evident in transformed hearts and minds.
The Bible says that Workers will still be harvesting when it is time to plough the fields again. They will still be trampling the grapes when it is time for a new crop. Sweet wine will drip from the mountains and pour from the hills (Amos 9:13).
As you walk your steady path of grace and truth and love you can expect God to overtake you and go ahead of you. 

 

 

Times of Refreshing in the Presence of The Lord

TIMES OF REFRESHING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD 

ACTS 3:1. Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service and as they approached the Temple a man was there, who had been lame from birth, and who was carried every day to one of the temple gates called ‘the gate Beautiful’, where he would beg for money from the people who entered the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple he asked them for some money Peter and John looked intently at the man and told him to look back at them. He gave them his full attention because he thought they were about to give him some money. 

Then Peter said to him ‘Look, I don’t have any money, but there is something I do have that I am going to give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and start walking. Peter took the man by his right hand and began to lift him up, and straightaway the man’s feet and ankle bones became firm and strong. He stood up and began to walk around then he started leaping about. He entered the temple with Peter and John, still leaping about and praising God.Everybody was staring at him as he walked around praising God. They realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at The Beautiful Gate and they were overwhelmingly surprised! They all rushed out to Solomon’s Hall, where he was holding tightly to Peter and John! Everyone stood there awed by the wonderful thing that had happened.
When Peter saw this he addressed the crowd, saying, ‘All you Israelites, what are you staring at us like that for? As if it was something to do with our holiness or our power that caused this man to walk. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of our forefathers has done this to glorify his Son Jesus, whom you handed over to Pilate and rejected, even when Pilate himself was determined to set him free. You have rejected the Holy and Just One and pleaded for a murderer to be set free in his place. You have killed the Prince of Life, whom God has raised from the dead. We are witnesses to the fact that he rose from the dead and is still alive. 

It is all about him and who he is and what he does, and faith in his name has made this man, whom you all know and recognize, healed and strong. It is the faith that comes from Jesus that has given this man perfect soundness before your very eyes. But it is clear to me now that you and your spiritual leaders did all of those things in complete ignorance. However, it is also clear that God had declared to you all about Christ and his suffering through the prophets, and these prophesies have now been fulfilled. So now you need to repent by accepting a totally new mindset, and change your whole way of life, and let your sins be cancelled out. 

Then you will know times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. And God will send Jesus Christ back, as has been proclaimed. But he must stay in Heaven until in God’s time everything is restored to the fulfillment of what has been prophesied through the prophets since the beginning of time. Moses said, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people (Jesus). Listen carefully to everything he tells you.’ Then Moses said, ‘Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet (Jesus) will be completely cut off from God’s people. Every prophet starting with Samuel, spoke about what is happening today. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to you people first, to bless you, in turning every one of you away from your iniquities.’
The Bible says that the old Levitical priesthood of Israel could not fulfill the completeness of what God’s will was for his people in the Earth (Hebrews 7:11). Jesus has been given a special priesthood ministry from Heaven, called the ‘Priesthood of Melchizedek’ which ushers us into his presence, drawing us into being bonded with him and God the Father through the Holy Spirit. This priesthood ministry brings about the completeness of what God’s will is for his people in the Earth. We are heading towards that time of fulfillment through Jesus, determined by God’s Word from the beginning of time, and the goal is; ‘until we all reach the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God (not just dogma/doctrine but agreement on who Jesus is), to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Ephesians 4:13) and only God knows that measure and the number that will be gathered to him in this way, and when that will be completed, but we can live with this hope in our hearts.
Hebrews 6:19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the veil into God’s presence in the Holy Place. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. 
When our spirit is awakened to this our souls can be healed (saved) and begin to express the life of Jesus within us - not just the natural life of our own uninformed and separated human spirit. Through Jesus our human spirit is now joined as one spirit with the Spirit of The Lord (1Corinthians 6:20). 
Those verses in the beginning of Acts chapter three brought the kingdom of heaven’s activity right into the Jewish Temple – and the sign of a miracle healing through the risen Jesus took place before the eyes of all the Jewish people in the temple. Peter took this opportunity to preach to the Jews that their time of being the witness in the Earth to the presence of God was over for this age, and that a new order of the ‘Kingdom age’ had begun. This warning had the air of finality about it for Israel and would require from them a change of mind and heart in their spirits that could bring them out of ignorance and unbelief into hearing the truth about Jesus and having faith in him.

God was bringing everything from the past that had promised Jesus the Messiah into the world to now belong to the present moment – and not only that moment in time but for all time into the future, where all of our sins are cancelled out and where we can experience ‘the times of refreshing (anapsyxis – the recovery of breath -literally ‘revival’), from the presence of The Lord’. That Greek word anapsyxis is only used this one time ever in the New Testament!! - another Hebrew word for revival is used three times in the Old Testament. In its natural sense or application, it is the breathing again of the air of life for our body to live – to be revived. (Our word Asphyxiate - to have our breath choked off – is the opposite of anapsyxis and is from the same Greek word). Our natural human body breathes for us automatically, without forceful huffing and puffing. As we rest in his presence with faith that we are one with God in Spirit the Lord makes us aware of the Holy Spirit breathing God’s life within us. This refreshing of anapsyxis is the new air we breathe of God’s holy presence within us. This is our revival, at all times - the conscious awareness of being present in our hearts and minds with the life of the Holy Spirit within. Our faith becomes a conscious appreciation of every moment of our new life in Christ.

As we sit and receive these times of refreshing in his presence, we can focus our hearts and minds from a place of spiritual oneness with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and come to know them as persons that we are part of as they are part of us, three wonderful parts in fact. They live and breathe within us, reviving us with their life. Talk to them at this time of presence and tell them how you feel. Ask each one of them to reveal their nature to you of love and compassion for the burdens you carry in your soul. Let them reassure you that they are accomplishing something for you supernaturally with those burdens that is beyond your power to achieve. Jesus said ‘come to me all you that are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you (be bonded with me) and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Jesus gives us grace for the burden)

 

Hearing God Speak

 HEARING GOD SPEAK 

Acts 2: 1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place (One hundred and twenty in the upper room). And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3Then there appeared flickering tongues of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Crowds of people were drawn to the noise and commotion of the sound of the wind and the loud yelling of the one hundred and twenty disciples speaking with great passion the works of God in foreign languages that they had never spoken before. Jerusalem was crowded on that day with thousands of Jewish visitors from many regions and nations, as well as the local Jewish population. Those crowds were hearing this message of God in their many various languages. The Bible says There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven (vs.6) that ‘heard them speaking in their own language, proclaiming the wonderful works of God’... and it goes on to list seventeen regions and nations.

God wanted to get the attention of the whole world that day – and he sent these amazing signs. The time had arrived for God’s eternal and pre-ordained purpose for humanity to receive the Holy Spirit. The word ‘pente’ means ‘fifty’ and it was fifty days after Jesus had risen from the dead. He had stayed with them for forty days upon the earth and they had to wait another ten days. Jesus had said they had to wait to receive the ‘Promise of The Father’, which was the sending of the Holy Spirit upon mankind. 
This astounding miracle was a reversal of the rebellion of Nimrod the mighty warrior mentioned in Genesis chapter eleven. He was the king of Babylon (the first kingdom mentioned in the Bible) and was responsible for building the Tower of Babel, which was meant to reach the heavens and serve as a symbol of human unity and political power. This was the first political rejection of the one true God, and in response to this prideful act, God confused the languages of the people working on the tower, causing them to speak different languages and preventing them from understanding one another and resulting in the scattering of different nations and cultures across the earth with their own languages. 
Instead of the disunity and political conflict of different nations ruling over the world God had now made available the unity of one voice that would rule in the hearts of all who believed in God through Jesus Christ. 
This was the first time that mankind had heard the voice of The Holy Spirit other than through the Old Testament prophets or through Jesus himself. Humanity was being prepared to hear God speak. This was an astounding sign to the people gathered in Jerusalem that God was at work in their midst. Being able to now hear God speak would change their lives forever. It would change the course of humanity. 

Some people accused the disciples of being drunk but Peter assured them that this was not the case, saying ‘these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day (9am). But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel’ And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. (verse 17). It is interesting that Peter says in that verse -  ‘I will pour out OF My Spirit… The word ‘OF’ is added by Peter here as it was not in Joel’s original prophecy and I do not believe it was a mistake. The Holy Spirit was telling us that this outpouring on the day of Pentecost was only a partial fulfilment of what was yet to happen in the last days of history. In Joel’s original prophecy Joel goes on to describe the events of the end of the world, which were obviously not going to happen in those days of the book of acts and are yet to occur. ‘Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’
Peter then tells everybody there that they too can receive this gift of the Holy Spirit if they change their hearts and minds and be baptised. and that this is for them and for their children and for all those who are afar off (in time and location - that means us!). 
So the book of Acts is still being written!

Peter warns them not to accept the distorted mindset of the current generation, and that is an appeal to us as well as to them. He exhorts them to live for God, with Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Verse 41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
Three thousand people accepted this truth and became the community of faith and of grace and love. This points to the end of the era of being ‘under the dominion of the Law’ and being transferred into the Kingdom of God which is ‘under the dominion of grace’ (Romans 6:14). This was the beginning of The Church.
When Moses received the Commandments from God on Mount Sinai and came down to give the Law to Israel on the tablets of stone, he saw the people of Israel worshipping the golden calf and celebrating in an orgy of idolatry. God told Moses to command the Levites to go through the camp and slay the offenders, and on that day of giving of the Law three thousand people lost their lives. On the day of Pentecost three thousand people received new life.

Pentecost was the dawning of a new era where people could expect to hear Holy Spirit speaking to them in their own language - to join their hearts and minds to his heart and mind. God is re-kindling that era in the days in which we live. Hearing God speaking to us in our own language not only means that we hear him in our spoken language. It means that we hear the personal and specific word into our hearts that reveals to us what he is doing in our individual life circumstance, in whatever issue that we are grappling with, so that we can find his wisdom and know what to do. Faith comes by hearing the word from God not from watching miracles or seeing signs or even listening. We hear God’s voice and not our own voice. Your spirit was created to hear what the Holy Spirit wants to say to you, and the Bible also reminds us that there are personal things that no other person could advise you on or teach you - only God knows you the way you do.
But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, in your hearts, so that you don’t need anyone to teach you what is right. For he teaches you all things, and he is the Truth… (1John 2:27). He waits for you to ask him, and if we really want to know the truth of what we need to hear we will trust him to give it to us and we will gratefully accept what he says – that is the key to answered prayer. 
The Bible tells us to ask for wisdom and that he will give it to you - in your own language!
James 1:5 If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you, for he is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him… But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to tell you.
As we have communion this morning and wait in his presence for a time, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you regarding any issues that you might need wisdom for. Ask and give thanks and expect to hear – and you will hear something in his time, as you continue to ask.  

There could be a part of you that says no don’t do that - it won’t happen for you. You’ve probably been hearing that part for a long time.  It’s just trying to protect you from getting disappointed. It could be telling you just to worry about the problem for a while longer and work on it yourself until some other problems come along that need more worry than that one. But don’t get mad at that part. Just ask it nicely to step aside for a moment. Tell it that God would like to get a word in.  Then welcome the Holy Spirit to speak to your spirit. That’s what your spirit was created for.   

 

 

The End of the Beginning

 

THE END OF THE BEGINNING 

The dead body of Jesus was brought back to life in resurrected form when the Spirit of Jesus re-inhabited his entombed body on the Sunday following the Passover Sabbath. Only moments after this a number of people that accompanied Jesus from Paradise on his Heavenward journey also inhabited their recently entombed bodies and made the briefest of appearances to their loved ones. (Matthew 27.52).

On the Sunday morning after the Passover Sabbath (Leviticus 23:9) there was another feast that was part of the Passover Feast being celebrated by Israel. This was the wave offering, the waving of the sheaves or bunches of wheat or barley shoots that were the firstfruits of the harvest season. This festive day of the Passover feast was prophetic of Jesus whom the Bible twice declares to be the firstfruits of the resurrection (1Corinthians 15:20,23)- Jesus is the prime sheaf of the wave offering and the other company of people who also rose and appeared to many made up the rest of the sheaf. 

Jesus then began his upward journey to the Throne in heaven to present his blood to his Father for the purification of the sins of the whole earth. He returned to the earth that same day same day in a resurrected body that could never ever die again. This resurrected body was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body.

Mark 16:9 After that, He appeared in another form (heteros morphe – an altered form or nature) to two of them as they walked and went into the country.

Jesus returned to earth to Jerusalem and heard that the temple priests had fabricated a story that his body had been stolen by the disciples who had overcome the temple guards and raided the tomb. He set off walking from Jerusalem in the direction of Galilee, where he had said he would meet with his disciples. He saw two men walking together in serious discussion and he greeted them and joined them as they walked, but Holy Spirit had supernaturally veiled their eyes from recognizing him (Luke 24:13). They were taken aback that this stranger seemed to know nothing of what had happened in Jerusalem over the last few days. They explained patiently to this stranger the things about Jesus, that he did miracles and that he was a great prophet and how their chief priests and rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified Him. They said they were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel, as he had said that he would rise on the third day, and besides all this, that day was the third day since these things happened. 

As they walked the 12 K journey to Emmaus Jesus quoted them passage after passage from the writings of the prophets, beginning with the book of Genesis and going right on through the Scriptures, explaining what the passages meant and what they said about himself, and  something happened in their hearts as they listened to him. They appealed to him to stay with them as they finally arrived at Emmaus, even though he had told them he was going further, so Jesus accepted their offer to at least stay and have a meal with them. During the meal Jesus took some bread, and prayed a blessing over it, and as he broke the bread their eyes were opened and immediately, they recognized who he was and at that very moment Jesus vanished from their sight. This could well be called the firstfruits communion service - a prophetic illustration of how our times of fellowship and communion in remembrance of Jesus open up to us a deeper revelation of who Jesus is as we sit in the presence of God in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

After Jesus had disappeared the two men decided to go back into Jerusalem and find the disciples who were in hiding, afraid of what was going to happen to them because of the rumors that were going about that they had stolen Jesus’ body. They found them and were whisked inside and the doors were locked behind them. They told them of their journey with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and their miraculous meal with him where he had suddenly vanished. While they were still talking Jesus appeared in their midst while the doors remained locked. The disciples panicked, and thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus explained to them that he was not a ghost because a ghost didn’t have bones and flesh, and he asked them to touch his hands and his feet and to see for themselves. 
 
Jesus stretched forth his hands and his peace hit their hearts. He breathed his Spirit upon them and they received the impartation of his peace. They immediately felt at one with Jesus and with each other. But this was just a mere foretaste of what was to come, as it would only be after his final ascension and being seated at the right hand of Father that Holy Spirit would be sent to dwell within them. On the day of Pentecost Holy Spirit would be sent from Father and from himself upon all humanity. 

He asked them if he could have something to eat, so James brought back some steamed fish and some honeycomb and Jesus accepted it and ate it. Jesus noticed that Thomas was not amongst them and he told them he would see them in a few days at Galilee, and he vanished once more.

The disciples all gathered at Galilee eight days later and Jesus again miraculously appeared to them. Jesus knew that Thomas had not believed that he had risen, even after the other disciples had said that they had seen him, so Jesus held out his hands towards Thomas and told him to have faith and believe and touch his hands and his side where he had been pierced. Thomas did this and said, ‘My Lord and my God’. Jesus acknowledged that in seeing and touching he now believed. He went on to tell Thomas that there would be many who will believe without even seeing him and that they would be greatly blessed for that kind of faith. 

Jesus appeared to them again one morning after seven of them had been out fishing all night and had caught nothing. He stood on the shore and watched them fishing but they didn't realize that it was him. They had taken two boats out, one larger boat, rigged for catching and one auxiliary boat, which helped with baiting and with the haul. 
Jesus shouted out to the fishermen from the shore asking them if they had yet caught anything and they said no they hadn’t. Then Jesus told them to throw out the net on the right-hand side of the boat, and they would get plenty of fish, and when they did they couldn’t draw in the net because of the weight of the fish. Then John called out to Peter that it was the Lord, and at that, Peter put on a robe and jumped into the water and swam ashore. The rest of the disciples stayed in the boat and pulled the loaded net to the beach. 
When they got to where Jesus was, they saw that a fire was kindled and fish were frying over it, and there was bread.
Jesus told them to bring some of the fish they had just caught, so Peter went out and dragged the net ashore. By his count there were 153 large fish and yet the net hadn’t torn. Jesus then invited them to come and have some breakfast and Jesus went around serving them the bread and fish. That was the third time Jesus had appeared to them since his return from the dead.

After they had all enjoyed breakfast together Jesus called Peter aside. He knew there were things that had to be said between them. Peter’s soul was in a turmoil of regrets, shame and guilt. Time and again he had asked himself why he didn’t stand up for Jesus instead of disowning him three times when he was asked if he knew him. He had remembered when the rooster crowed that Jesus had predicted that he would deny him three times. What was Jesus going to say to him now – would Jesus disown him, even rebuke him three times? But Jesus asked Peter three times, in three different ways whether or not Peter loved him, and Peter humbly gave himself up to the ownership of God’s love. As a true representation of a flawed humanity owned by God’s love, Peter was mercifully forgiven and accepted. It was also this moment that owned him, not the past, or the uncertain future. This would also continue to be his greatest gift to God, the gift of his each moment to God. Peter was then commissioned three times to feed God’s lambs and feed his sheep. As Peter would go on in life, he would have faced his many imperfections, and he may well have learned to return to that special moment on the seashore, where he could surrender to the ownership of God’s love and shed his fears, growing in faith and being transformed into God’s nature.

The bible says that Jesus met with over five hundred people over those forty days (1Corinthians 15:6). The final time that he met with his disciples they asked him if this was now the time for him to free Israel from Rome and restore his people as a mighty nation. He told them that only his Father had set these times and they were not for them to know. He also told them that they would testify about his death and resurrection with great power. He instructed them not to leave Jerusalem and that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit in just a few days – the promise of the Father. They were to wait in the same room in which he celebrated the Passover feast with them, the night he was taken captive. 

Suddenly a dazzling light shone within a billowing white cloud above them. Jesus turned to them all and raised his hands in blessing. He did not need to say goodbye. As he began to rise slowly heavenwards he was enveloped in the cloud, and as they stood together looking into the cloud that had taken him they saw the shining figures of the now familiar two angels standing to one side who told them that the same cloud that they saw taking Jesus into eternity would also bring him back one day to that same place - in total glory and triumph, and The Plan of Salvation will have been fulfilled.

And so, they waited just as he had instructed them, and after ten days the Holy Spirit fell upon them. Jesus had told them he would join their lives to his risen life and they would become one in Spirit with him. Holy Spirit would take Father’s love, and his own words, and place them in the hearts of men and women, as a deep consciousness of indwelling abiding life. 

 

 

 

The Resurrection

THE RESURRECTION 

When Jesus gave up his Spirit to his Father, before he ascended, the Bible says he first descended - in his Spirit - on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. Jesus had spoken about these places when he told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar. The rich man who lived sumptuously in arrogant self-indulgence all of his life ended up in Hades and Lazarus who lived the life of a humble beggar at the gate of the rich man’s house ended up in Paradise, with Abraham. (Luke 16:19) 

Jesus had now descended to these places. Paradise was where there were millions of souls who had been waiting for him from the beginning of time. These had lived their lives on earth in hope, many of them guided by the Commandments through Moses, but many simply by a good conscience. They were locked away from eternity till Jesus would now come to get them. Jesus would also visit Hades the prison of lost hope.

The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the Gospel, the plan of the Father to send Jesus into the world to set people free from the captivity of sin and to bring his New Creation life to humanity. Jesus would have sat with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and many others in Paradise as well as his newfound friend that hung next to him on the cross and to whom he said, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’! He spoke to them and with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day.
The Bible says that before he ascended, he led the captives free (Ephesians 4:8) from the captivity of time, as they had waited till heaven came to get them. Jesus also declared the word of his truth to those lost in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. 

The Book of Revelation also tells us that Jesus was given the keys of ‘Hell and death’ at this time, and with the key of freedom he was able to unlock those prisoners of the past in Paradise and take them into an eternal heaven.
Revelation1:17,18 Fear not; I am the first and the last: -- I am he that lives and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death.

On the third day when Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and the grave - and that changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and now humanity could become a ‘New Creation Being’, joined in the Spirit with Jesus (2Corinthians 5:14). 

The time had now come for them all to leave, and Jesus led them on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home in Heaven. The entire company was escorted by hosts of angels as they ascended ever upwards until they first reached the earth, (Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8, Psalm 24)). There they all stopped for a brief period of time, because there were things for Jesus to do there. The first thing that he had to do was to go to his tomb where his earthly body lay in its shroud. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel went ahead of Jesus to the tomb and found the guards there that the temple priests had appointed to stand watch at the tomb. As the angels alighted the ground shook and the massive stone rolled away as a huge burst of lightning hit the place sending the guards reeling headlong to the ground. They leapt up in fright and bolted. Jesus entered his tomb and united himself again to the wounded shell of his body, leaving the headpiece and shroud lying separated from one another in the tomb (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from that temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about and would have recalled vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby, and his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. 

At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices according to the custom, to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way to the tomb, they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived, they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

‘Are you looking for Jesus?’ Gabriel said. ‘He has come back to life as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples that he will be coming to see them, and that they are to wait for him in Galilee.’

The women ran to tell the disciples but one of them dropped behind and walked slowly through the garden, still confused and weeping. She almost collided with Jesus who was also walking in the garden, and she apologized, not recognizing him, thinking he was the gardener. This was Mary Magdalene. And he called her by her name and said, ‘It’s alright Mary, it is me.’

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and she shared the things that he had said to her.’ (John 20.17)

And now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven. The blood of animal sacrifice had been offered for the sins of the people by the High priest of Israel in the holy place of the temple for the last fifteen hundred years for the nation of Israel (Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9) but Jesus had just marked the end of blood sacrifice for sin for all time by sprinkling his innocent blood on the ground at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth.
Hebrews 9:11 But Jesus came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation. 

A very strange thing was also happening in other parts of Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones. 
Matthew 27:52 And when the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. Many bodies of the saints who had died were raised up and came out of the tombs after his resurrection, and they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  

After the very brief visit to their astounded friends and relatives on earth in their new recognizable forms, they then had to regroup with Jesus and resume their journey to Heaven (Imagine the strange reality of this spiritual world). The magnificent procession began to ascend from their graves to the sky in glorious splendour with its escort of glorious angels. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming his majestic entrance.
Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!

At this command the heavenly music began. The sounds of pipes and trumpets, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, and a beautiful range of stringed instruments created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. 
Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 
This was the moment - purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his Being of power.

Ephesians 1:19-21. how powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the centre of all consequence and meaning in the universe.

All the angels and all those who had come with Jesus on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honour and joined in the magnificent celebration. His time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day, still bearing the marks of the cruel wreath of thorns from his flogging, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, to seal The Plan of his Father and see it implemented for the rest of time. At the end of those forty days he would return to Heaven, from where he would begin his new mission upon the earth through the Holy Spirit. 

Holy Spirit had accompanied Jesus every moment of his life on earth. He had joined himself to the human spirit of Jesus and had felt every feeling that Jesus had felt. He had known every one of his thoughts, and he had communicated every thought from Father God to him. Those thoughts became words in the mouth of Jesus, and Spirit caused those words to have life and power to all who heard Jesus speak. In this way Holy Spirit had also experienced life within humanity on the earth. After those forty days on the earth Jesus returned to Heaven and ten days after that, Jesus and Father sent Holy Spirit to the earth on the day of Pentecost and ushered in the New Creation being of God with us. 
Holy Spirit would become the bond between Heaven and earth for all time. He would fall like rain from Heaven upon the souls of mankind, seeking to awaken the spirit of humanity to the cosmic truth of what Jesus had done in joining mankind to God. 
Humanity could now live in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and win its struggle against the mindset of lostness and separation called the law of sin and death. 
Within the human pain of this struggle against lostness and separation would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. It is the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the human heart, subduing human nature, that it might resonate with the nature of God. Whenever this truth is embraced by a human heart, that heart will at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be.