Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sunday, June 26th

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is 1 Kings 8-9 - Acts 8:1-25

It is impossible to limit the Holy Spirit.

Satan probably thought he had come up with the sure-fire way to stop the spread of Christianity - persecution.

Stephen is the first martyr. And his death results in what initially appears to be a victory for evil as the church scatters and Saul is all fired up to destroy the church.

And it is a bad situation.

Stephen had so much potential. The Bible refers to him as a man "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 6:5) and "a man full of God's grace and power, [who] did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people" (Acts 6:8). This was an educated, passionate, faithful, holy man. His potential for future ministry was huge! But then his life was cut tragically short. That sure does sound like a victory for evil, doesn't it?

In his sermon, The Persecuted Church Reaches Out, John MacArthur says....

The Holy Spirit is in the business of turning negatives into positives, of taking disasters and turning them into miracles. You can't blockade the Holy Spirit. He likes to takes those kind of tragedies and turn them into victory.

If you've been with us in our study of the book of Acts, you know what He's done with Peter and John. Every time they got in a hopeless situation, it just was a greater opportunity to preach the gospel. Every time they got into a negative scene, the Spirit of God turned it into a positive. Every time the persecution arose, the preaching followed right on it's heels. And God allowed the gospel to reach into areas and the hearts of people who could never otherwise be reached, other than through persecution. It's kind of like trying to stamp out a fire, and the harder you jump on it, the more you scatter the embers and start fires all over everywhere. And that's exactly what happened. They started jumping all over the church in Jerusalem and all they did was send the embers all over the world, because that's how the Holy Spirit works.....

That's what the Holy Spirit wants to use. And I'm not talking about sin; I'm talking about a negative situation. God uses persecution. And the first great missionary movement of the church began with persecution. The church had been in Jerusalem all this time, in Jerusalem, and finally the catalyst that shocked the church out was persecution. Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs has become the seed of the church." Stephen's death was a catalyst. In fact, persecution was so tied in with preaching Jesus Christ, that the word for witness is margarus,and it came to mean martyr. It just was natural, seemingly. It was just intrinsic to being a believer that you confer to the world and you got a negative reaction. But that was only impetus for new evangelism and new opportunity. (emphasis mine)

God used the death of Stephen to further His kingdom. In fact, if you go far enough down the line, Stephen's death was the catalyst, not just for Saul's destruction of the church, but for Saul's redemption, and the beginning of Paul's ministry. And I don't think it's possible to overstate Paul's influence on the Church.

But at the time, to Stephen's fellow believers, friends and family, his death must've seemed like a crushing blow. It sure would've to me!

That's because we are only able to look at things through a human perspective. We can't see the bigger picture. We can only see the underside of the tapestry and boy, does the underside of the tapestry look like a disaster. But when you flip it over, when you get even a glimpse of the incredible handiwork of the Master Himself, then it all makes sense, then the beauty can be recognized for what it is.

But we live here on earth, with human perspective, limited by space and time and to the knowledge we've been given by God. And so we need to trust that that beautiful tapestry is there, waiting for it's full glory to be revealed at the chosen time.

Hebrews 1:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

So much easier said than done, but no one said faith was easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be so commendable and there would be no Hebrews list of those worthy of being inducted into the "faith hall of fame".

So no matter how hard it is, no matter how little sense it makes - when it looks like evil has gotten a foothold, take heart, have faith and look and see what God will do!

Tomorrow's passage: 1 Kings 10-11, Acts 8:26-40

2 comments:

Miriam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Miriam said...

Great post, Tammy. I often hesitate to mention God or even church to people for fear of offending them more so than for fear of ridicule. And yet, not many people are concerned about offending Christians with their language or behaviour. I think that says a lot about who's been making too many concessions to the "other side," so to speak.

Another thing I took note of was Solomon's prayer. There was a lot of good stuff there, but I particularly noticed the verse that says "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!" In spite of the incredible grandeur and beauty of the temple by human standards, Solomon knew that it was a relatively poor place for the God of heaven to live.