Day 317
Pray (ACts) Read - Acts 5v17-26 Message - Scott Woodburn How do you stop the spread of the Gospel? Many have asked that question from the beginning of history and every single one of them have failed to find the answer. The Gospel cannot be stopped and the Lord will save every single one of His elect. With the Apostles doing signs and wonders and growing in popularity, the Sadducees out of sheer jealousy (v17) thought that prison was the answer to the Gospel problem. Who were the Sadducees? They were one of the key sects or sub-groups of the Jewish faith. They traced their roots back to Zadok, who was the high priest under King Solomon. If the Pharisees devoted themselves to detailed questions about the law and religious practice, the Sadducees were more concerned about material things. They had a good relationship with the Romans and wanted to maintain the status quo. Importantly they denied the resurrection which was now being proclaimed by the Apostles. Unfortunately for the Sadducees their plan had not taken into account Almighty God. During the night the Lord sent and angel who came to open the prison doors and commanded the Apostles to preach the gospel in the temple at daybreak (v19-21). The Apostles did as they had been commanded and soon the news came back to the Sadducees that their escaped captives hadn't gone too far and were now preaching in the temple (v25). I'm fairly certain that all of us know someone who "doesn't do the Gospel". There are many reasons for such hostility but it is always dispiriting when those whom we love won't tolerate any hearing of Christ. I was leading a funeral at Roselawn many years ago where time is strictly limited to half an hour. At this particular funeral there was such a crowd that it took around ten minutes to get everyone into the crematorium safely. The manager of the facility approached me and said "Your reverence, I'd need you to finish at twenty past or we'll never get these people out in time." That gave me about ten minutes for two hymns, a tribute, a bible reading, prayers and a sermon. I preached that day a simple explanation of the Gospel and our need to believe it and I couldn't have preached for more than two minutes. I caught the eye of a mourner as I preached and as I spoke he began to shake his head. Without meaning to, I kept catching this man's eye and it appeared to me that he was getting angrier and angrier as the head kept shaking. I don't know for sure what the man's issue was. Perhaps it wasn't the Gospel, I'll never know, yet it seemed to me that this individual was quite angry at the message of the cross. What is to be done in the face of such opposition or anger? We preach Christ and Him crucified. The Sadducees couldn't stop the Gospel and there is no one alive today who can either. It moves unseen from nation to nation and sometimes those who preach it find themselves behind bars. Yet the Gospel doesn't stop and cannot be stopped and the Gospel can save even those who currently hate it. Do not despair when faced with hardness of heart instead preach the Gospel. Pray (acTS) Sing WSC Q84 What doth every sin deserve? Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.
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Day 316
Pray (ACts) Read - Exodus 4:1-5 Message - Alan Burke Right now I have a hankering for a battered sausage supper dosed in curry sauce from the Arcade Chippy in Antrim. I’d hop in the car and go and get one since I haven’t left the house yet this week, except for the fact that I’d likely be pulled over and although ‘a hankering’ seems like a reasonable excuse for me, I’m not quite sure it would cut it with the police. We have all made excuses, maybe not about why we travel 34 miles to the Arcade Chippy but things like, “I forgot my homework”, “It’s just not the right time”, “they had the advantage that I didn’t”, “I’m just to busy”, “I can’t I’m washing my hair tonight”. Giving an excuse to avoid doing something that we don’t really want to do. As excuses go Moses isn’t doing very well, he’s now on excuse number four to get out of going to Egypt. It seems that Moses is an unwilling recruit to say the least. Even though he had been given assurances and that elders would listen to what he had to say (3:18), he now says to God… “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” (4:1) From a human perspective, it is easy to see why Moses asked such a question, its not like he was a trusted upright member of the community. Moses in a sense is trying to get himself out of his task. He had heard but he hadn’t listened, he had failed to trust the word of God even though the word of God is the truth of salvation, it alone has the power to save. God graciously responds to the unwilling recruit and gives him three signs that he can use that will give him the credentials that he needs. These signs would act like references for a job application, like the police offices warrant card, for they prove what he says is the truth of God. Even though God’s word was enough though Moses didn’t quite believe it, God graciously gives Moses the assurance that he needs. God could have cause the earth to shatter, the sun to stand still any number of wonders he could have preformed yet to remove any doubt from the mind of Moses he uses the ordinary and does the extraordinary. First he is told to throw his staff on the ground (3). The same staff that would have helped him on the long journeys, that would have aided him in his work, protected himself and his sheep, he had likely carried with him and used every day without a second though, as it is thrown on the ground becomes a snake. So frightened was Moses that he ran, yet the Lord God told Moses to take the serpent by the tale. What do we learn from this? We learn of God’s dominion over creation for his purposes. Our view of God is so often limited, often we place on God the bounds of our own created experience, we have made God in our image but God is not created in our image we are instead created in his. That means our own limitations are not God’s, the laws of nature are not chains which the divine legislator has laid upon himself, instead they are threads which he holds in his hand and which he shortens or lengthens at will, he has power over all. And he is at work, we have talked about providence recently how God’ s works of providence are, his most holy, (Ps. 145:17) wise, (Ps. 104:24, Isa. 28:29) and powerful preserving, (Heb. 1:3) and governing all his creatures, and all their actions. (Ps. 103:19, Matt. 10:29–31). Here by how he used the ordinary to do the extraordinary he displayed that to Moses clearly in how he has dominion over creation for his purposes. Pray (acTS) Sing WSC Q 83 Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous? Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others. (Ezek. 8:6,13,15, 1 John 5:16, Ps. 78:17,32,56) Day 315
Pray (ACts) Read - Acts 5v12-16 Message - Scott Woodburn It is a tremendous tragedy in our day when men make careers out of false signs and wonders. One summer long ago, news came from Florida that a revival was breaking out. The meetings were shown every single day on the God channel and out of curiosity I tuned in. The revivalist claimed that he was able to heal every disease. Individuals were brought up onto the stage and the revivalist would punch them and kick them "healing" them as he went. On other occasions he would look into the camera and declare that someone had been raised from the dead in Kentucky at the sound of his voice. What did I make of it? I believed it to be fraudulent nonsense. Whenever these men arise claiming to move in power, remind yourself that there are no more Apostles in our day and age. The ministry of the Apostles was foundational (Ephesians 2v20). You do not build foundations several times. Equally those who falsely claim miracles today simply do not compare to what we find in Acts. In this great book the Apostles are regularly performing signs and wonders (v12). These gifts are given to them by God Himself to authenticate their message. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he was no fraud and that the signs of a true apostle were done in their midst (2 Corinthians 12v12). So these Apostles are ministering among the people in Solomon's Portico (v12b). They are walking where Jesus walked and doing mighty deeds in His name. Some Christians kept their distance from the Apostles (v13a), perhaps out of fear as they remembered Ananias and Sapphira or perhaps out of timidity. Regardless the Lord continued to save many non-believers and add them to the church (v14). Amazingly even those who fell under Peter's shadow were healed (v15) and there wasn't a single person sent away disappointed. An American "miracle worker" proclaimed last year that he had bound Covid19. Sadly his words have proved false. When the true Apostles were active all the sick were healed and every demon was driven out (v16). My brothers and sisters read these verses for your encouragement. Have you ever wondered if you have believed properly? Have you ever questioned why Christianity is the true faith and not some of the other religions? Luke gives us our history in the book of Acts. Christ has sent forward His Apostles with the Gospel and the ability to do signs and wonders. We should not marvel that the Gospel left Jerusalem and spread throughout the world. It is authentic. It is true. It is of God and it should be believed. May our timidity flee and may our boldness increase, for the ministry of the Prophets and Apostles has laid the foundations and Christ, the cornerstone, continues to build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Pray (acTS) Sing WSC Q82 Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed. Day 314
Pray (ACts) Read - Exodus 3:14-22 (focus v14-15) Message - Alan Burke The name we have our parents likely spent hours, even days and weeks agonising over before they gave it to us. There are some of us imagine though that our parents got one of those baby name books and randomly picked a name. More likely, it was because they knew someone with that name who meant something to them, or it was the name of someone famous or even because of its meaning. My parents I imagined as they gazed down at me, when they first saw my face knew what my name was going to be, not because I was named after one of my dad’s mates which is what I am told, no, I believe it was because they knew the meaning of my name, after all Alan means ‘handsome little rock'. Just as Moses name had meaning, to draw out (2:10) the name of God had meaning. So when Moses asks God for His name, he is expecting to find out something about this God, just like the names of Egypt’s gods said something about them. Here God gives Moses His name, but not just a name. God answers Moses and says: “I AM WHO I AM.” He then immediately tells Moses to say to the Israelites that, “I AM” sent him. God then finishes by fully revealing His name saying, “The LORD, literally, Yahweh—the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The Lord was telling Moses, I AM, the unchanging God. I AM, the self-existent God, I AM, creator and sustainer of all that exists, I AM, eternal in his existence, I AM, - Yahweh. Yahweh, the name of God is given to Moses, the personal name of God of your fathers, I Am God. This was the God that was sending Moses to save His people from their slavery, to bring them into freedom, when Moses returned to Egypt he was to stand before the elders of the people and say “I AM has sent me to you, and the rest of the Exodus is about God at work. Moses’ who came with a sense of inadequacy is reminded once more, that this God, the one before whom he shielded his face before afraid to look at, is one who can and will do what he says. Where Moses was weak, God’s almighty power would be at work. Moses is to go, and the elders would listen (3:18), and they would plunder Egypt as they left (3:22). This was the work of God. The God that we come before this day is the same God who appeared to Moses in this theophany; I AM, the unchanging God. I AM, the self-existent God, I AM, creator and sustainer of all that exists, I AM, eternal in his existence, I AM, - Yahweh. This is the God whom we come before this day, and this God has made himself even more fully known through the incarnation. For Jesus on many occasions declared himself to be “I AM”. One of such times is in John chapter 8, where Jesus says; “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!” So they (speaking of the religious leaders) picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:58-59). They didn’t pick up stones because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying; they understood all too well. They knew that He was declaring Himself to be Yahweh: He who spoke from the burning bush, the Great I AM. And it is the name of Jesus that we must call upon, that we are saved. Jesus said ‘I AM, the way the truth and the life, no one goes to the father except through me (Jn 14:6). Once we believe in Jesus, we may come to him with our questions, as Moses did. He will not turn us away. But what he wants us to do is to put our faith in him, going where he sends us and trusting in the promise of his everlasting presence. Pray (acTS) Sing WSC Q 81 What is forbidden in the tenth commandment? The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, (1 Kings 21:4, Esther 5:13, 1 Cor. 10:10) envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, (Gal. 5:26, James 3:14,16) and all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his. (Rom. 7:7–8, Rom. 13:9, Deut. 5:21) |
Alan
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