Jesus worked miracle after miracle of healing, feeding the crowds, raising the dead and touching the lives of those outcasts of society. Some of those who were healed by the Lord wanted to follow Him and be His disciples. There is one that stands out as different from others. Jesus commanded the “unclean spirit” to come out of the man in Mark 5:1-20.
After living a life of demonic misery, the man “begged Jesus that he might be with Him. And He did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you”” (5:19). This same principle is happening in places around the world, particularly among Muslims as well as countries like China. The personal testimonies of transformation are enough to cause others to come to Christ. Whole villages are hearing the gospel and coming to faith in Jesus because the individuals are telling their stories of deliverance over and over. Some are gifted and called to preach the gospel. But ALL are told to “GO…AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS” (Matthew 28:19). Let your story of salvation be told over and over to “your friends” as you are going through every responsibility that God has placed in your life.
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We know well the account of Jesus speaking to “a woman from Samaria” in John 4. Such a conversation between Jesus and a woman of her background, made “His disciples…marvel that He was talking with a woman” (4:27). Sadly, they missed a life-changing encounter. I could go into all the details of her situation as a Samaritan, the stigma of her life-style, and her ignorance of who Jesus was, but that is not the point of this blog.
It is more important to notice what she does as a result of this conversation. Her encounter was so life-changing that “the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to Him” (4:28-30). There was no need for Jesus to prompt her to tell others what was happening in her life. IT WAS SPONTANEOUS! What was the proof that her spontaneous evangelism was effective? “Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did” (4:39). I will repeat what has been said before; there is no witness more powerful than what God has done in your own life. That becomes the motivation to tell others about Jesus and His grace. Perhaps you need to take some time to recount what God has done in your life. Then go tell someone else. Amid all the difficulties that mission organizations and church mission boards complain about today, I sometimes ask myself what would happen to evangelism if there were no organizations or boards. What would happen if all these artificial props, programs or methods were suddenly taken away? I will give you an example of what happened in Scripture for you to seriously think about.
“One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus” (John 1:40–42a). There was an instinctive reaction in Andrew’s soul that caused him to tell someone else what he had encountered. Andrew had just been standing with John the Baptist listening to what he said about Jesus and immediately followed Him. This meeting with the Son of God was so powerful that he was compelled to get his brother Peter. It is obvious that Andrew’s personal witness was enough for his brother to drop what he was doing and come see the Messiah for himself. It is the beginning of a new life for Peter especially, that would “turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). What a spontaneous impact these men made. No budgets, no costly enterprises, no evangelism classes, and no external prompting apart from the work of God by the Holy Spirit. It was simply spontaneous evangelism – telling others what God has done in transforming your life and what you have seen. We can do the same through a personal walk with the Savior!! In February, on the last day that Brother “H” and Randy were together in Uganda, they prayed and discussed God’s Plan for His Church (GPHC) training in each of the 54 countries in Africa. Randy mentioned that he sensed God wants us to bring this training of leaders so the entire continent might be aflame with God's grace. “H” then mentioned a mental picture he had when contemplating this the night before. He said he saw a big cup of black tea, and he saw a hand holding the string of the tea bag. This picture led him to pray, asking God, "Whose hand holds the tea bag?" He sensed God saying, "The hand is Mine." “H” said, as tea filters throughout the entire cup of water, he prayed the tea of GPHC would filter throughout all of Africa.
What a graphic illustration in today’s language of the parable in Matthew 13:33 about the “leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leaven”. As the leaven permeates through the flour, so tea permeates the water in a cup. How fitting to see what God is doing in this world through the gospel. Eyes with no faith only see the disaster this world is in. Eyes full of faith see the power of God working to impact every people group with the gospel. Paul prayers for the saints at Ephesus, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you… and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,” (Ephesians 1:18–20). This is our prayer for the church everywhere. When spiritual eyes are opened, we become willing to cooperate with God’s plan in reaching the unreached with the “GOOD NEWS”! It is obvious from Jesus’ teachings concerning His Kingdom, that He expected dramatic and extraordinary growth. One of the many illustrations of this is the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31-32. The mustard seed is one of the smallest of seeds, but when planted, grows larger than all the other garden plants which have larger seeds. The end result of the tiny mustard seed is a tree large enough that “birds of the air come and make nests in its branches”. This is not understood or seen by the world “because of their unbelief” (13:58).
Jesus continues this teaching in verse 33 by using a “word picture”, comparing the gospel to being planted into a culture as yeast is to being mixed into a large amount of dough. The whole batch of dough is impacted from within by the yeast. Notice that it was “hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened”. In the first analogy, we see the principle of extraordinary growth that comes from planting the gospel in this world. In the second we see how the kingdom of heaven, the gospel of God’s grace, will permeate and have vast influence even though it is small and hid in the lives of believers. Neither of these principles will be seen in our lives and ministry unless we know the power of God in His Word and what the Spirit can do with it. That is why we continually remind you to RETURN TO THE SCRIPTURES! To the casual observer, the events in Philippi would discourage and derail this second missions trip. Not for Paul and Silas. They learned from those before them that they must “rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [Jesus]” (Acts 5:41). No wonder the jail at Philippi was turned into a cathedral of praise. This place of suffering became the first of four more churches that Paul and Silas planted in just over a year. · Philippi – October 50 to January 51 AD · Thessalonica – January 51 to April 51 AD · Berea – May 51 to September 51 AD · Corinth – November 51 to May 53 AD (They spent eighteen months in this city). Opposition and moral conditions actually created fertile ground for the gospel. Often we look for conditions that match our missionary temperament, rather than being led by the Spirit into fields that need the gospel most, even if it requires suffering. Where we fix our spiritual eyes is where we will either gain strength to endure or reasons to quit. Look how quickly the first three churches were planted. The average is about four months. I have no doubt in my mind that if Paul was here doing mission trips in the last two centuries, every people group would be reached and the Lord would have come. Looking at the principles that Paul employed is what should motivate us, not bog us down by failure. Dates taken from Gene Edwards, Revolutionary Bible Study, SeedSowers Publishing, 2009, page 191. After Paul and Silas revisited the churches in Galatia, the question was; where would they go next? It is always a challenge to any ministry, particularly mission endeavors. We must know clearly where God is leading. It was not that difficult for Paul; “having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not allow them” (Acts 16:6-7). I long to have that degree of sensitivity to the Spirit. It was followed by confirmation that’s they should “go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (16:10).
Though prayer is not specifically mentioned in these verses, we can gather from verse 13 that Paul placed a high priority on prayer. It was a large part of his dependent attitude toward all he did. As they sailed from Troas, with stops at Samothrace and Neapolis, I can only imagine the time Paul and Silas spent thanking God for the way He had directed them and praying that He would open effective doors before them as they entered the city of Macedonia. They headed to a river in Philippi “where [they] supposed there was a place of prayer”. What is your priority in ministry? If we truly are led by the Spirit through dependent prayer, it should not surprise us that three things are going to happen: 1. Satan will use his emissaries in an attempt to discourage or persecute so that the work of God stops. 2. God will give us great joy in the face of difficulties if we are dependent in prayer. A jail cell becomes a cathedral of praise such that God moves the earth and the souls of men. 3. God will open hearts to believe the gospel and persons will immediately obey in baptism. How close is your walk with the Lord? Is it such that the Spirit can clearly make known the mind of God and make your ministry more effective? Now that the Jerusalem counsel united the Apostles and a letter is in the hands of Judas (not the son of Simon Iscariot) and Silas, “they were sent off to…Antioch (253 miles), and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. [They] encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words” (Acts 15:30, 32). This is what confirmation in the gospel of grace does!
Paul is concerned about those young churches that he and Barnabas planted just over a year and a half ago. They must not be adversely affected by false teachers who would bring them “again into a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Without email or cell phones, there was only one way to make sure they continued to be established in the glorious gospel of grace. “Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36). Though Paul ended up taking Silas with him, let us not get distracted by the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over John called Mark. The importance of this return trip is confirmed by Paul writing his first letter to those four Gentile churches in Galatia. It would arrive ahead of him and Silas so they would have a double reminder of the gospel they heard and received. “BE ALERT” is Paul’s warning to leaders in the church (20:31). I am very concerned about small and seductive deviations from the pure gospel that have crept into the church today. On the surface, they seem innocent, but we need discerning minds and hearts to detect how they will undermine the gospel and eventually lead the flock into weakness and bondage. There is no doubt in my mind that Paul would have struck out on his second missionary trip had it not been for a strong intrusion of heresy. How this really started, we are not sure, but the writing of Paul’s letter to the Galatians (Spring of 50 AD) comes right after the date of the Jerusalem counsel (Winter 50 AD). There must have been persons who were jealous of Paul and the way he planted strong churches so quickly. ‘There must be something wrong with his teaching!’ might have been their thinking.
It took eye-witnesses to God’s work among the Gentiles to convince the church in Jerusalem what “God had done with them, and that He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). The other key to this truth was “by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us, and He made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith” (15:8-9). This should be a warning to those who preach a “second blessing” is required to receive and be filled with the Spirit. God does not have ‘second class disciples or churches’! If there is any lack, it is we who have failed to understand the gift. This interlude between Paul’s trips only added energy to this man of God. As we will see, he has a fire under him that puts him ten steps ahead of his opposers. By the late spring of 50 AD, Paul was ready to return to churches that had been planted and deepen their roots in the gospel. From there, he and Silas would push on to plant other churches. We will see this in the next blog. After reviewing two disquieting symptoms in the last few blogs, I want to turn your attention to the effective work of Paul. With his encourager Barnabas at his side, they planted four churches in just under two years. Here are the places: · Pisidia’s Antioch – July to November 47 AD · Iconium – December 47 AD to April 48 AD · Lystra – May to August 48 AD · Derbe – September to December 48 AD Notice how short their stay was in each place. Paul and Barnabas retraced their path through these places to “strengthen the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). They kept their teaching to the basics so these new believers and churches would be attached to Christ, not a form other than the pure gospel. Not long after this, these churches would be challenged by false teachers wanting to distort the gospel of grace and shackle their souls by the law for salvation. The length of time in a place does not determine whether a church will stand, but how converts are rooted in the gospel of grace. Please follow me on this theme for the next few days and we will see more of God’s work through Paul. Dates taken from Gene Edwards, Revolutionary Bible Study, SeedSowers Publishing, 2009, page 191. |
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