Acts 11:19-30
Could it be that we who go by the name of Christian need the
hell scared out of us? Is not faith more
than what is understood by our minds, and what our eyes have seen? We are instructed in this way; “Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the
people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the
universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out
of things that are visible.” (Hebrews
11:1-3 ESV) If ask, can you understand
the Scripture above, you might wrongly say yes, but no man can fathom something
being made out of things that are not visible, that requires an assurance of
things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.
Most of us will not grasp God until we stop trying to make
Him so small that we have understanding of Him.
Has He not spoken, has he not said; “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways, declares the LORD. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV) Run and run fast from the man who tells you
he understands God, for that man is one of two things, deceived or a deceiver.
If tomorrow, you were told that a deacon in your local
church who was known to be a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and all
had seen him being used of God doing great wonders among the people, and you
heard that he was killed by some people who believed they were doing the work of
God, would you not be fearful? If so,
then you understand why the people of this early church scattered to other
parts of the nation and to other nations.
Most of them would only talk about Jesus to other Jews but a few men
went to Antioch and spoke to the Hellenists Jews. Those were Jews who adopted the Greek ways,
and had little to do with the other Jews.
If you can put yourself into the story, do you see God at
work? Now, I’m not talking about reading
the outcome of this account, but what happens if tomorrow you lose your job,
your wife has a miscarriage or one of your children never return from the movie
because some evil person takes their life, what do you do? Many will blame it on bad luck, or blame God,
but most of us will not stop and ask God to reveal how he is going to use this
horrible thing to advance His kingdom.
But because they were faithful to speak out about what Jesus had done
for them, the kingdom of God was advanced and many, in fact so many that the
church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch, and after seeing and supplying
what was needed to grow their faith, he went to Tarsus looking for Saul. And Saul and Barnabas remained with the
people and taught them how to trust in the faithfulness of an unseen God.
Now lets be very clear, God did not cause you to lose your
job, nor did he make your wife miscarry or one of your children die by the
hands of an evil person, nor did he cause Stephen to be killed, but He did
allow it to happen. If He did not allow
it to happen, then He is much too small to trust, but God will supply all of
your needs to His richest in glory. If
only we could see what is unseen, it would scare the fear out of us, but in
that we do not ask of God, will our vision be increased, will our walk of faith
grow? We can stand against the schemes
of the devil and God has told us how, but that armor is not seen, and the enemy
of your soul is quick to tell you it is not real or needed, and does it not
come down to acting as if God tells the truth?
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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