April 20, 2014
Let’s look at two verses that were already read; first Ephesians 5. I was thinking how we are remembering the Lord’s love in giving Himself. Here we get both sides: the Lord’s love to us and the sweet smelling savour to God. Read v. 2. Now let’s turn to John 10:17. I was struck by this verse: didn’t the Father already love His Son? His love extended further because of His obedience. The Lord showed us His love by the laying down of His life.
Hymn 38 – The gospel bells are ringing
Prayer
We are going on with the story of the prodigal son. Last time, we ended when the younger son left home. Was this a good idea? I remember home being where my bed was warm and lovely meals made by my mother.
Luke 15:12 - 14
The young man had several stops once he left his father’s house. His first stop was a Far Country. Why faraway? I used to print a tract about a young man who lived in a Christian home. This young man felt that Christianity took all the fun out of life. Because of this he left home, he felt the farther he got away from home the better, so he left London and went all the way to Scotland. There he got a job as a stable boy. Before cars people got around by horse and carriage. The stable boy’s job would be to get the horse ready for use and to drive the carriages. This young man tried to impress his new employer by doing a good job. On the carriages there was a bench in the front where the driver would sit; behind him would sit the passengers. On one occasion, his new employer sat with him on the driver’s bench. The young man thought that he wanted to observe how he drove the horses so made sure he did his best job. After they began, the employer turned to him and asked if he was saved! You can run from your parents, but you can’t run from God. I don’t think that the young man in our parable wanted to leave his: he wanted to leave his father’s morals.
Stop number two was Wasted. To waste is to use something that has value and not get the value out of it. You can waste your life: God has a purpose for each day of our life. While a preacher was talking to an audience he took a coin out of his pocket. He told the crowd that his life was like that coin: he could spend it anyway he wanted. He could use it wisely or waste it: but he could only use it once. Our young man wasted his life and spent all his money living the wrong way. It was a downhill journey.
The next stop was Spent All. All the money he had been given by his father was all spent. Stop four was Famine. He was out of food. Stop five was In Want. Once you start in the wrong direction, it’s hard to get going in the right direction again. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have, so we will have to continue his journey next time.
Acts 11:25-30, 12:1-11
Earlier in this chapter we had the meeting between the church leaders and Peter, with Peter relating how the Gentiles had believed and received the Holy Spirit just like the Jews had at Pentecost. We’ve also read about Barnabas. He and Saul worked in Antioch with the new assembly there. The centre of Christianity didn’t move from Jerusalem, rather Antioch joined in fellowship with it.
It’s good to see how the new assembly at Antioch functioned. There was fellowship between the believers in Antioch and the believers in Jerusalem. We see Agabus, a prophet from Jerusalem, coming and telling of a famine that would come on all the world. There were those in Antioch who took leadership—elders—and decided to send help to the brethren in Jerusalem. We can be thankful for the fellowship of the saints!
Christianity doesn’t have a single centre that everyone has to travel to, like Jerusalem in Judaism. There are different assemblies today, and our Centre isn’t a place but a Person. Christ is our centre, and we should seek to be where the Lord has set His name; and where two or three are gathered together in that name.
Where there is a great work of the Spirit, there always seems to be a great work of the Devil. He changes his tactics based on the situation at hand, but the battle never stops. It started when Lucifer tried to be like God, and engaged man in the Garden of Eden. Satan works where God works, trying to ruin whatever God is doing. His victim always seems to be man, so we need the armour of God that we talked about last week to protect ourselves.
Satan used Herod to kill James the brother of John. Acts actually doesn’t say much about it, but it tells us enough. There were three groups of people: the Gentiles, the Jews, and (brought out of the Gentiles and Jews through salvation) the Christians. Herod, a Gentile, attacked the Christians by killing James, and so pleased the Jews.
Seeing that the Jews liked that James had been killed, Herod imprisoned Peter. He tactically avoided killing him on a high holiday, though, just as the Jews didn’t want to take Jesus on the feast day. So Herod imprisoned Peter for the time being, and made sure that he was well guarded. Peter wasn’t arrested as a criminal, but rather for political gain. But prayer was made by the Church without ceasing for him.
You can use this story as a Gospel analogy. Peter is like an unsaved person; under the power of the enemy (who does all he can to keep him in bondage). There are those who pray for the unsaved. Peter wasn’t concerned about his situation (like most unsaved people) but the Lord sent a messenger to wake him up. The messenger wakes Peter up, the shackles fall from his hands, he girds himself with truth and follows the messenger. He is delivered from the enemy (just as we have been delivered from Satan), and joins the assembly.
Herod set a guard over Peter—just like the Romans guarded the Lord’s tomb—to make sure he wouldn’t get away. Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, not worried about what would happen. He rested in the Lord, knowing He would take care of him. We’ll find out next week what happened!
Hymn 28—O what a Saviour is Jesus the Lord
Prayer