Thoughts from Acts 2

What a great service today! (Dec 19)

Carolyn Anderson played Simple Gifts for the offertory and Emily Valdez sang I Wonder as I Wander...she did a super job. And it all started with the Jubilaires singing What Can I Give to the King?

Bro. Mike took us back to Acts 2. He began with an illustration from air flight - about how course adjustments have to be made during a trip. Sometimes we need to do that in our church, also, checking to see that we are being led, directed, motivated, fueled and defined by the Holy Spirit. This applies to everything we do.

On the Day of Pentecost described in Acts 2, God was making a major course adjustment. He moved to a new address. Away from the temple in downtown Jerusalem to the residences of the human hearts. He used the miracle of tongues to get the people's attention.

But many, in verse 13, mocked the whole scene and blamed the event on 'too much wine.'

I guess to them it was just gibberish. The text says the disciples were talking about the wonders of God. So the unbelieving, disbelieving mind would not hear the words.

What would it take to get their (the mockers and scorners) attention? The obvious miracle of the tongues did not do it. (When you think about it -- how could any of it be related to drinking too much? Over drinking does not make people speak in actual foreign languages -- or we would have a new Berlitz course -- how to learn Spanish by drinking tequila or French by speaking Bordeaux).

This was not a marketing ploy. Not a special meeting to determine how to reach people with the gospel. Not a media survey on 'felt needs.' (It was 'seeker friendly', though!)

It was a God-thing.

How does God work?

1. God chooses to work in ways that reveal the condition of people's hearts.
His ways are not our ways. God's work at Pentecost revealed the condition of the hearts of the listeners and observers. Some marveled and some mocked.

2. Unbelief can be the result of optimum circumstances of life. Deuteronomy 8 warns the Israelites about this pitfall. Moses reminds his people that God had humbled them in the desert during the long years of wandering. Now they were getting ready to enter the promised land -- the land of plenty.

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you don't forget the LORD your God, failing to observe His commands, laws and decrees....then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God.

Some people have fortunate lives. But they refuse to acknowledge that God has blessed them. Sometimes it's dangerous to be blessed too much. It may mean we do not feel the need of God. We need some place in our lives where God can reach in and speak to us. Something that needs to be 'fixed.'

3. Unbelief must be approached from the perspective of spiritual deadness.

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:3-6

People don't require a smart, witty, popular evangelist. They don't need an intellectual giant or an entertaining singer. It is God who commands the light to shine out of the darkness. It is His Holy Spirit that bring us to Him.

Illustration: Luke 16, when the rich man died and cried out from hell for Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers so that they would repent and not come to that place of torment.

Abraham said, "They have Moses and the Prophets." The rich man said, "but if someone comes from the dead they will repent."

Abraham says "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead."

Bro Mike's last question: Does God have a trick up His sleeve for my friends, family, loved ones who reject Him? (My hearts cries out "Yes, God, have something up Your sleeve!"

But Bro Mike points out....the answer is usually No...there is nothing else "up His sleeve." The evidence is already here. (However, we can't predict God's sovereign ways -- like the children in Narnia tried to describe Aslan -- He is not a tame lion!)

The key is God's Word -- it's all there. And all our activities at church must reflect the treasure of God's Word. Worship services, prayer meetings, choir, Sunday School, Awanas, the outreach ministries of Lighthouse and Basketball --it is the Word of God that we must keep proclaiming. Even if our loved ones are mockers and scorners...we must keep sowing the seed of God's Word.

God's Word is for us the knowledge, the Truth, and the power of God. To the mockers it is just foolishness. We must keep sowing the seed and praying that God will work on the soil.