June 29, 2014
Scripture:
Let’s read from 1 Peter 1:10 & 11. This morning the sufferings of Christ were brought before us, and they are beyond comprehension and understanding. But there will be a glory that will be equal in amount to the sufferings. Well may we marvel at the brightness that will be as intense as His suffering! There will be eternal glory and He is worthy of it.
Hymn 345 - News for little children
Prayer
We are just about done the three-part parable. The three parts are the sheep, the silver, and the son. Today, we will look at the appendix of the parable. An appendix is a part of your body, but it is also something extra added to end of something else. The father in the third part had two sons, and both were lost. The first rebellious son saw his sin and has come home in what we’ve read; but the other son was self-righteous and didn’t see his sin.
Luke 15:24 - 30
The elder son was good and worked in his father’s field. When he came home that evening he heard the music from the celebration of the younger son’s return. He asked one of the servants what was going on. The elder son was very upset when he heard that they were rejoicing that the younger son, who had been such an embarrassment to the family, had come home. The father loved both sons. He came out to the older son to encourage him to go inside to the party, but he wouldn’t. The older son didn’t even consider the prodigal to be his brother.
It is possible for some to be very good and not be saved. I find they are the hardest to win to Christ. They wonder what they have done. The Bible says, “all have sinned” and “there is none that doth good and sinneth not.” Oswald Smith was once asked if good people go to heaven. His reply was, “Yes, if there were any.” Everyone was born with a sin nature and to go to heaven everyone needs to be saved.
In each part of the parable, something was lost, was found and there was joy. In the appendix here we have a son that was lost, he wasn’t found, and there was no joy. Isn’t it sad?
Acts 14:11-28
Last week we saw the result of the miracle that Paul was enabled to perform on the cripple that had never walked. The pagans thought that the gods had come down from heaven, and they called Paul and Barnabas Jupiter and Mercurious (a father and son in Greek mythology). They wanted to do sacrifice to them!
What the people imagined Paul and Barnabas as is what Paul and Barnabas were trying to turn them from. They were trying to turn them to the Living God. They hadn’t realized this, so Paul reminded them. The Jews knew the living God, but these Gentiles didn’t.
Paul told these people that, whether you were Jew or Gentile, God had given you a witness of Himself: creation. There was no excuse for worshiping idols. Romans 1:19-20. God has manifested Himself, in part, through creation. It gives evidence of God and His wisdom, design, variety, etc. (Mentioning any this, of course, is taboo in today’s centres of learning. Even the Intelligent Design argument is too close to God.) Creation, though, can’t teach us the most important truth about God: redemption. You must go to the Bible for that!
Paul, a strict Jew, was speaking to heathen Gentiles; people who had never known the Living God. They didn’t have the record of God’s miracles and help the way that Israel did. However, Psalm 106:33-41 shows us that—in spite of all that they had—God’s people got to be just as bad as the heathen in Canaan had been!
Not only had Paul shown the power of the Living God by healing the crippled man—something no idol has ever done—but he had also told the people of the witness that God had left: creation, and His gifts of provision and gladness. Yet these hardly restrained the people from sacrificing to him and Barnabas as false gods!
What next? Verse 19. One moment these people think that Paul and Barnabas are incarnated idols, and can hardly be stopped from doing sacrifice; and the next moment the Jews come, and with a bit of persuasion, have them stoning Paul! The Jews had done this to Jesus. One day they were heralding Him with palm leaves, and a few days later were crying for His crucifixion. The human heart is fickle.
Some feel that Paul mentions this situation in 2 Corinthians 12:1—3. Apparently, Paul was caught up to the third Heaven (God’s presence) and Paradise. To go through all that Paul did, and then to get to Paradise and have to go back to Earth seems tough! It might have been the encouragement he needed to go on, though. He knew what he meant when he talked about being absent from the body and present with the Lord.
After being stoned and left for dead, you’d think that Paul would need EMS attention, but he got up and walked into the city. He had preformed a miracle, now he was a miracle!
Paul and Barnabas left Lystra and went and visited Derbe, and then headed back the way that they had come. Right back to Lystra, where all these events had just at happened! As they went, what did they find? Believers! Those that were going on in the faith. This time around they confirmed the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. They might have had the same opposition that Paul and Barnabas had had—Paul told them that it was by much persecution that we must enter the Kingdom of Heaven—but they encouraged them to press on.
Another thing that Paul and Barnabas did was to appoint elders for the assemblies.These weren’t ministers, but rather spiritual pillars for others to lean on and look to. Then, after prayer and fasting, they commended the saints, not to the elders, but to the Lord.
What should we learn from all of Paul’s experiences? That we must continue in the faith, even though our situations may be difficult.
Hymn 140 - Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
Prayer