We received a very touching note from one of our translators in South Asia that shows what happens when our material is carefully read.
“I am thankful to the Lord God that he selected us for this blessed and excellent work (translating God’s Plan for His Disciples into Urdu). My wife and I are now doing the proof reading and we are being so blessed. We are really enjoying the edit work and learning more of God’s Word. We are learning as well how to read the Bible in a year using the plan at the back of the book. I hope by tomorrow we will finish the proofreading and will send you the file. Kindly keep us in your prayers and we will complete the translation soon. We are thankful for this great opportunity and thank God that we learned from it by doing the work. Thank you!!” These translators were given very little time to accomplish a huge task. I think the Lord surprised them with an unexpected reward – knowing much better what God’s Word says about itself, the Spirit, and the foundations of the gospel. You too can have the same joy, yet not be a translator.
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Not every event, place, or contact is an exciting story. There are times when we pour much prayer, time, and resources into a group, and when we return it seems that our work has been in vain. One of our team sent me a text that gave the sad account of a group they introduced God’s Plan for His Disciples to several months ago and only one person had done the study work.
Paul always looked for persons who were faithful. When he wrote to the young church at Colossae, he thanked God for them because they had received the gospel “which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf” (Colossians 1:6–7). While Paul preached in many places and planted many churches, he spent as much time investing in individuals who had proven themselves faithful. Timothy, Titus, and others were among these individuals who proved themselves reliable and faithful to multiply what they had been given. If you are one of those who stands out from the crowd and wants to be counted among the faithful, follow Paul’s advice to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). I want to continue our theme of the spontaneous expansion to God’s work in the Book of Acts. It is important for the Church today to draw from the biblical principles that caused amazing growth in the Early Church.
Yesterday we looked at what happened right after the ‘deacons’ were chosen to serve widows and the local church. These men had to be “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (6:3) and “full of faith”(6:5). While such a movement of God resulted in amazing growth (6:7), there is something else these men had which the Church prayed for a couple years earlier – “boldness.” Of the seven men chosen with this character quality, Stephen demonstrates that he was well versed in the Scriptures. Jewish leaders in the local synagogue “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (6:10). Even today, it is common for persons who have no logical response to the truth to instigate persons to make false charges against God’s servants. Stephen answers charges laid against him with a profound summary of the Old Testament, quoting passages that condemned his accusers. We have seen in previous chapters that God’s Word and the Holy Spirit produced a flood of converts. Not this time! Stephen is stoned. Could it be that one reason why we are not seeing more waves of conversion is that we are unprepared to speak the truth in conviction and boldness, and if necessary, die for it? Returning to the amazing work of God when the Church was born, teaches us many principles that we need to learn. We must never forget that standing firm on the truth of Scripture and holding to the pure gospel of grace will invite persecution. That is what happened in Acts 4.
The religious rulers of that day “charged them not to speak at all in the name of Jesus” (4:18). When this edict was pronounced on the disciples, they gathered the church together for prayer. Nothing was more important for the Church than to express their dependance on the Lord for HIS work to be done HIS waywith HIS power in the face of opposition. They had two prayer requests:
There are many more examples in Acts of this spontaneous work of God, but space does not permit. Luke’s comment four years later is, “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). A couple of things we must remember:
Let’s continue our journey through the Book of Acts. We have already seen a mighty movement of God through the proper use of His Word and the Holy Spirit filling those who were present in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.
Sometime later, healing of the lame man in chapter 3 gives them another opportunity, NOT TO PROMOTE HEALING, but to present the gospel through the Scriptures. In this message the moral requirement of repentance comes up again; “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, thattimes of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,” (Acts 3:19–20). When the Word of God is proclaimed with the authority of the Spirit, things happen. In this case, “many of those who heard the Word believed and the number of the men came to about five thousand” (4:4). We could probably add women and children to that number. From three thousand in chapter two, it is obvious that there was no weakening of God’s power. About this time, the Church begins to face persecution and religious leaders demand “them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (4:18). This was because the disciples were again using Scriptures with “boldness” (4:13) to allow the Spirit to produce conviction in the heart. I will repeat what I have said before: the authority for conviction in your heart is NOT my words. It iss God’s Words and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the greatest need in the Church today is repentance! From what? Trying to accomplish God’s work with man’s methods. This is necessary if we are going to make way for God to work in fresh powerful ways. As I return to Acts 2, note in verses 36 to 38 (READ) how the Spirit worked in this moment. It was the Spirit of God using the Word of God to do a divine surgery on the hearts of those present as well as exalting Jesus as Lord. No program was planned! The Holy Spirit stirred up hearts with conviction through the Scriptures to the point that they wanted to know what to do. There was no altar call! There was a ‘God call’ in the heart that could not be ignored.
Peter had a ready answer because he had been where these people were at that moment. It had only been about 62 days since he had denied the Lord and all it took was one heart piercing look from Jesus to bring Peter to tearful repentance. From Peter’s own experience, he responded to the question, “Brothers, what shall we do? … ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (38). Repentance is the realignment of our wills and habits into agreement with God’s truth. Baptism is our public identification with Jesus as Lord. What was the result? “There were added (to the Church) that day about three thousand souls” (41). Many dismiss this kind of event because that was the day of Pentecost. About two years later, Peter and John are again bold in their preaching Jesus, saying, “turn every one of you from your wickedness” (3:26). In many churches today, that message would not go over very well. We are not supposed to confront people with what the Scripture says about sin. This weakness in the Church has developed because we have forgotten the authority of Scripture and the Holy Spirit! It is true that today is not the Day of Pentecost, but God’s Word and the Spirit have not changed, therefore the change is with us. The problem is we do not believe God can work now as He did then. Every time I read Luke’s account of the Early Church (The Book of Acts), my heart is refreshed with hope and conviction about what God can and wants to do today. God orchestrated a day in history when thousands were gathered in Jerusalem from most parts of the known world. Many languages were present when the Spirit filled 120 disciples who met for ten days and spent those days in prayer because Jesus “ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father” (1:4; John 14:15-26).
Please note in Acts 2:4 that before Peter delivered his first sermon, ALL 120 WERE SPEAKING IN OTHER TONGUES (LANGUAGES) “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” All 120 were being used as “witnesses in Jerusalem” (1:8) to the coming of “the promise of the Father” (1:4). This was the initial evidence of the Spirit’s filling which resulted in the crowds asking the question about the Spirit coming to indwell the disciples; “What does this mean?” (2:12). Peter had spent time getting to know the Old Testament, even what some call the “Minor Prophets.” How could they be “minor” when Joel was prophesying about that very moment? The whole OT is MAJOR because it points to Jesus! I will say more about this amazing event in subsequent blogs, but I want to ask you; ‘How is the Spirit impacting your “witness in ___________” (fill in the blank with where you live, work, and gather with other Christians). Do people wonder at what God is doing in you? Often there are events in our lives and ministry that take us by surprise. We fail to understand how they happen because the details are hidden from us. All we can do is thank the Lord for what He has done. I received a text today from one of our indigenous partners in S. E. Asia who told me of a very unusual contact.
“My wife was sharing our Burmese GPHD manual (God’s Plan for His Disciples) with a young lady from New Delhi, India. She finished our GPHD training during her visit in our country. Now she wants to teach GPHD to Burmese people in India.” This made me think of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8. We are not told of his influence after returning home, but we can know for certain that when God starts a work in someone, He will watch over it until the work is complete (Philippians 1:6). There are times when we are not able to follow-up on a seed that is planted in some heart. Trust the Lord and His sovereign working. What is at the foundation of our work? What propels our team to leave their families for weeks at a time and travel to the other places around the world, sleep in strange places, eat unfamiliar food, and in most cases speak through a translator? THE GOSPEL!
Roland Allen said, “the Spirit which impels us to missionary labor is the Spirit of Christ. ALL missionary desire and effort proceeds from the presence of Christ in the souls of His people. He is the only source. Christ is also the ultimate end of all missionary work. The hope set before us (missionaries) is the manifestation of Christ, the unfolding of His nature, the demonstration of His power, and the revelation of His glory!” (Essential Missionary Principles, page 67). If we reduce missionary labor to anything less than what Allen has stated, we rob Christ and the Spirit of the purpose and fulfillment of the incarnation. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”” (Luke 19:10). Watching God working is so inspiring! I have just been in a meeting where Randy, one of our team, shared what is happening in parts of Africa. God is moving in ways we have never seen before or anywhere in the world. The Holy Spirit is igniting an understanding of the gospel that has not been there before, and along with this is a passion to help others grasp the meaning of Scripture.
The immediate reaction is a desire to duplicate what is happening there everywhere else in the world. We may forget that God is sovereign and does not work the same way in every place. Remember in the parable of the sower? He had to work with different soils which resulted in different receptions to the seed (God’s Word). Jesus refers to the prophecy in Isaiah 6:9-10: “You will hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” Why? “This people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed.” Nothing was wrong with the seed, but the human heart grew cold to the Word of God. If we try to manufacture revival or reception of the Word without the action of the Spirit on the heart, we will produce religion and not a relationship with the Lord. The Spirit’s work results in a spontaneous multiplication. |
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