Concluding thoughts from this series, continued.
First, Christians must be convinced that we are benefactors of society, with the answer to our culture’s depravity, however uncomfortable to human ego it is. And unbelievers are troublers of culture, however proud they may be of their intelligence and humanism. For they multiply the problems faced by refusing to accept personal sin, and by refusing to repent and bring it to Jesus for removal. Continued intellectual arrogance before God deepens our problem until God’s only response will be wrath on us all. While humble admission of our godlessness—understood as refusal to have God in our thinking and decisions—will elicit God’s mercy. Nehemiah 9 stresses that certainty. But recovery must begin with our submission to God as sinners needing Grace. Since it’s obvious that we’re unwilling to surrender our PRIDE to God’s MERCY, God’s wrath must come upon us nationally until we capitulate. Second, while Christians will never re-direct our priority from Jesus to anyone or anything else, we accept all the opposition God’s enemies want to hurl at us WITHOUT retaliating in kind. The reactions of Jews under Nehemiah and Jews under Christ illustrate. In Nehemiah 4:1-6 the expatriates wouldn’t militarily respond to Sanballat’s demagoguery over rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. But the Governor did ask God to reverse his insults and to plunder him as he threatened to plunder the Jews. In Acts 4:23-31 apostles John and Peter confronted an aroused Sanhedrin for healing a lame man, then preaching the Resurrection in Christ’s name. They had been seized the day before and jailed overnight. Maybe thinking that the stench of prison would remove the aroma of resurrection, they hailed them before the august assembly of religious aristocrats. And, as if they didn’t know, sought their authority for healing and preaching. Undeterred and unafraid by knowing the LORD they served, they bore a powerful witness the authorities wouldn’t accept but couldn’t deny. (Remember their sin against knowledge when studying the Jewish-Roman War that resulted in Jerusalem and the Temple being destroyed. There’s a sin of ignorance for which God will punish with few blows and a sin against knowledge that he will punish with many Luke 12:47-48.) The apostles ignored the human command not to preach again in Christ’s name by the Certainty that Jesus had empowered them to Preach, and they would DO SO! With a final threat of harm if they didn’t obey, the constituted authority sent them away. When Peter and John again stood in the presence of friends and loved ones, who would be endangered by proclaiming Christ, the apostles “reported all that the chief priests and elders said to them” verse 23. Understand…they reported it in full, nothing added, nothing subtracted—without even asking their opinion or reaction. Very apostolic-like. Very unlike many church councils today, which canvass the group for a wide-variety of opinions, out of which they hope to build “a consensus”. No…no opinions asked for or needed, God be praised. For, “when they heard this….” All those laymen, in company with all Twelve apostles, all in one voice…PRAYED (you read it in Acts 4:23-31). Then re-read verses 29-31. They disregarded the threat by considering it God’s responsibility, verse 29a, b, c, SO THEY COULD FOCUS ON THEIRS, verses 29d-30. They asked God to do more of the healing, signs and wonders eliciting leadership hatred AND…to empower them “to speak your word with great boldness.” Is it any wonder that God blessed them so much the building shook with the Holy Spirit filling the structure with his Presence to overflowing? And is it any wonder that they all left—lay and apostolic members—to speak “the word of God boldly?” With all the noise in society against Christians, what would a church do today under the same threat? Indeed, when we barely bud when criticized, how can we expect to bloom when threatened life and limb? End Part XVII
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