we are in the book of Acts because
the age of the Holy Spirit has begun and we're going to be
answering questions who is the Holy Spirit what is the church and what
is God doing today through the church in the power of the Holy
Spirit. Please Subscribe and leave a comment. thank you.
if in Luke you have what every Christian should be, which is
what God wants to bring us all to, his Perfection, as a perfect man
or woman, you have in Acts the place where that perfecting work
will happen, w
hich is the church. so the the church is that place
where God will work in us in our character to bring us in a time
to come. no one's perfect but he can do a perfect work in us to
prepare us for that first resurrection that we we spoke about. but, if
Luke is the singular man, the book of Acts is the corporate man. if
Luke is the Lord Jesus as a single man going around the earth, Acts
is the Lord Jesus in his body working to the ends of the Earth
because in Luke he is confined to one spac
e wherever he happens
to be at that time wherever he's walking, that's his place. but in
Acts he can be in many places at once through his body now. so
through his body he is going to work in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria
and to the remotest part of the earth. so Acts one is the
launching pad. Acts one is the beginning. Acts one is the um
right before the birthday time, uh where the church is going to come
to birth in Acts two. so what I call this chapter: Promised
Power for a Worldwide Witn
ess and that's from Acts 1 verse 8, “you
shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come up upon you” and
then he said there in verse four uh that they should “wait for
what the father had promised” so there's a promise God. made
a promise to his disciples uh through the Lord Jesus. so the
Lord Jesus is saying wait for the promise to come. and the subtitle
is: God Gives His Power to Carry Out His Purposes. so at
the very beginning of the church age there is a power to the witness.
the
power is not us trying to uh stir up some emotion. it's
not that. the word power means ability. it means Force. the
word used 120 times in the New Testament. it's a very common
word. it's what the word Dynamite would come from. it comes from
the word miracles. uh or miracles is translated from the same
word in various parts of the New Testament. so God has a
purpose. and this is where maybe people get confused about the
work of of the Holy Spirit. people think that the Holy Spirit is thei
r
personal attendant. that is the Holy Spirit exists for our personal
happiness. that is people see Christianity as, I have my
happiness, I have my life to live, so God's going to help me do what
I want. but that's not why God gives us his power because he
has purposes. he has purposes that are much higher than than
our purposes, much greater much bigger. but if you live a Christianity
that's that that has a small vision, then you won't really
know what you're supposed to do. you'll thin
k your life's about your
ups and downs, your trials, your successes and your failures. and
that's not what the Holy Spirit is so much into. he's into something
else. but he wants to work through us to do it. next uh
part please. 1-3 Forty Days of Personal Training. so in this time
of preparation there's going to be a training that happens. 4-8
Last Words Before the Ascension 9-11 A Preview of His Return
12-15 Devoted to Unified Prayer 16-22 Prophetic Reasons For a
New Apostle and 23-26 L
eaving the Choice in God's Hands. so let
me just talk a little bit about the church like the big picture.
where does a church come from? the church is from Heaven, the church
is in heaven, and the church is for heaven. the church is a
Heavenly Body body. the church was conceived in the mind of the
Father in eternity. the Father knew what he was doing. the church is
built by the son here in time. and the church is empowered by the
Holy Spirit. so the church is conceived in in heaven, it is
in
heaven, that is Ephesians 1 verse 22 “the church which is his body the
fullness of him that fills all in in all.” right now as his body we
are at his right hand or you might say, the head is in heaven and
his body is there too. the church has a Heavenly position right
now. and the church is being prepared for heaven. that is, the
purpose of the church is not to have a good Earthly life. the
purpose of being a member of the church is not to have a comfortable
life. it's to get get rea
dy for the kingdom of God and to Reign and
to rule with the Lord Jesus for a thousand years and then for
Endless ages after that. it's an incredible privilege. and so the
the church has a Heavenly calling but it has an Earthly work. and
so what is the Holy Spirit coming to do on the earth? the Holy Spirit
is the representative and agent of the Lord Jesus Christ Christ
and the Holy Spirit comes to secure God's rights in the person
of Jesus Christ. God…so here's a big big picture. the 30,00
0 feet
foot view. God has rights in this universe. he has rights. what are
his rights? and this is from a book called the Triumph of the
Crucified, Eric Sauer. “God's rights are that the whole universe
should render to Him undivided, unrivaled, unreserved, worship,
acknowledging that all things are His by right and that no one else
in the universe has any right before Him.” God's rights are that,
like it says up there, “that in all things he might have the
preeminence.” that is, the Lord
Jesus has a first place in everything.
but the Lord Jesus as a glorified man will even, it says in the Book
of Romans, lead us in praise to the father how amazing is that.
that is, the Lord Jesus is the first man in which God got all of his
rights. everything God should get he did get in Jesus, as the perfect
man in his life in his birth in his life in his death and in his
resurrection. every part of the chronology is perfect. every minute
God the Father is magnified in that man. so you
know what God
the Father wants to do it again. He wants to do it again in all of
us. he wants to get his rights in us. God has rights. we should be
concerned about his rights. now what did the Book of Luke showed
us? is that the cross is the central place where God's rights
are recognized. the cross. that is, with the Lord Jesus giving
up his himself, remember he's hanging on the cross, he's saying
“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” there are
seven sayings of the Lord on
the cross. he comes to a place of
complete death. it ends in the most terrible way. that is, he gives up
his life, his perfect life, he didn't have a bad life, he had a perfect
life, he gave it up in the worst possible way so that God would
have his perfect rights in every man's life. that's what the Lord
Jesus is doing. so it's the cross that removes the barrier in us to
God getting his his rights. so let me ask a quick question here.
what is the big problem with any Christian? this is a
a general
question sin. sin, that true sin. now there's another way of talking
about that. pride. pride yeah now where does pride come from?
where does pride come from? fall of man. fall of man. that's
good. what's our biggest problem? we're really close. there's just a certain word to say it. selfrighteousness or you could
say self. our self is the problem. our self is the origin of all of our
failures. and so the Cross of Christ Works in us to remove Reliance
on ourself and plant in US
Reliance on God the Father
through the Life of Christ. so someone comes to birth inside of
us at the new birth, Christ in you the hope of glory. so our Christian
Life is is about coming to a place where we allow Christ to
live in Us in an unhindered way in an unreserved way. he is living in
us. that's what the power of the Holy Spirit is going to do, allow
him to live through US, allow Christ. so it's not us, like
having a performance, and having a million likes on social media. that's
not what it is. it's the Life of Christ. by the way, the Life of
Christ is not popular on the planet. in the next age, very popular.
this age, not so much. this is the age of his rejection. so in the
time of his rejection God is getting something precious in us. so let's
just walk through this chapter. how does God prepare us to
be Witnesses. he prepares us through personal training. are
you willing to experience personal training? are you willing to have
a personal trainer train you? are
you willing to be trained? so what
happens here is the Lord Jesus for 40 days, he's training, verse
two he says, “after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the
apostles whom he had chosen.” so he has a chosen group of people
and then there's 11 right? because one one went bad. there's
11 and there's other people there too. there there's others
around there like a company of people and so they've been chosen.
and isn't that wonderful that he gave the orders by the Holy
Spirit. the
glorified man is in the power of the Holy Spirit preparing
them to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and so he's
talking to them. I mean, he's God already he's already God. but in
the power of the spirit that's perfect Reliance. this is the perfect
man but what is he going to do with them? he is going to, verse
three, his his training program is about presenting himself, it's
about appearing to them, it's about speaking. there's three aspects
to his uh training program and so the first
aspect has to do with
showing that “hey I am risen” many convincing proofs. I'm here. I am
the man of Eternity right in front of you. here let's have, let's break
bread here, it said “many times places.” what a place to be trained
because a lot of these people are going to be martyred. they're
going to be beaten. they're going to be stoned. they're going to
be rejected. why would they do that? why would you go through all
that? it has to be true. so he's showing them “I am the way the
t
ruth and the life.” it's many convincing proofs not one or
two. and then he appears to them like in different situations. there's
different times and places, not just like in a meeting, you know
like by but other times he's appearing to them, in their life.
and then he's speaking to them. now this is so important. speaking
to them the things concerning the kingdom of God. because the
Lord's burden is the kingdom. the Lord's burden is to prepare
people for the kingdom. it's for it's for hi
s kingdom and God's kingdom
to come. so he's yearning for it. but between the time of his
resurrection and the time of the Kingdom there's going to be a
gap of time and so he's going to train them. so we just have to
ask, “Lord train me. train me in being your your witness.” because
he's training them with truth but he's also training them with
experience because he's touching their hearts, is what he he's
doing. and so, we need both. we need the truth of God's word
grounded in personal
experience of his shepherding in us. and so
4-8 you have The Last Words Before the Ascension. and then
he's about to be taken up and you know what you should do is,
when someone leaves you pay attention to their last words. could
be very significant. and his last words have to do with three
things: waiting, receiving, and witnessing. those are his three
last things he's saying. wait together, the promise is coming.
and so, uh he is going to charge them for that. now in this charge
they'r
e they're going to ask a question, “Lord, is it at this time
you're restoring the Kingdom to Israel.” so they ask a question
that's missing the whole purpose of them being on the earth. the whole
purpose of being here is not to take off tomorrow. say it's not
gonna be tomorrow you're not not gonna yank you David's kingdom
is not going to come like in two days. guys this is the long haul.
and you might remember in the Book of Luke, Luke 19 the Lord
in his parable of the nobleman, verse 12,
“a nobleman went to
a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return.”
so it will be a long time and then he's going to instruct them
on something else. he is going to give them his last words and he
says here in verse um seven “it is not for you to know times or epochs
which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” so he's
going to put them in the place of limitation. they're going to be
limited. that is, I'm not going to tell you those answers but I will
do someth
ing else, and it's the “something else” that really
matters. let's look at verse eight, verse eight is the index of the
whole book of Acts where he has witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. the book of
Acts really fits into those three sections, uh what's going to
happen in the whole book. 9 through 11 he's going to look ahead. he's
going to give them a preview of things coming. so they they see
him taken up he's lifted up. in verse 10 they're
gazing intently.
and so they're like this and they're looking up. the angel
says, “hey uh what are you guys looking? at uh what are you
standing here looking around? isn't there something for you to do?
you're just looking. uh, what you saw is how he's going to return.
and so get going. you know. get going. start to um obey his
commands.” you could say, his last words is a taste of the end of the
age. that's pretty neat. they're going to get a preview of the end
at the beginning. the beg
inning shows the end. and so they they
go to Jerusalem uh verse 12 and they return to Jerusalem for the
mount called Oliver. a a Sabbath day’s journey is a short way to
walk. it's about 3/4 of a mile. so they went only a short distance.
and a Sabbath's Day's Journey was something established
amongst the rabbis in previous centuries where they were trying
to have faithful Jews keep the Old Testament. they came up with
the distance that they walked. so they go to the upper room and
there's
a whole bunch of people there. and you know what's really
interesting is I call it, Devoted to Unified Prayer because it says
in verse 14 “these all with one mind were continually devoting
themselves to prayer.” what a blessing this is. they had one
mind because they were trained in their thinking. their thinking was
changed. because their thinking was changed they could be in unity.
it's the truth that will unite God's people to be of one mind.
it says, “they were continually devoting t
hemselves.” so sometimes
Christians continually devote themselves to to the wrong thing.
they're devoted to something else. but prayer, prayer is where
you will find the power of God coming to you, because when
when they're coming together they're not saying, “man, we
are such great people. we are we are amazing people. we are just,
you know, the Lord just gave us that last lecture and we are
just…let's go into the temple right now! let's go right in the temple
and tell them all how wron
g they are!” uh remember these are
Galileans. they're they're not native to Jerusalem. so they wouldn't
have wanted to stay in Jerusalem. they would have wanted to go to
their home um province, but they go there. so they are devoted to
prayer and something's going to happen because they are unified.
and and this Devotion to prayer it's over a 10 day period. it's not
just one prayer offered by by one person. what's so wonderful about
this time, there's no hierarchy. that's not like the bis
hop's going
to pray and everyone's quiet, or the Deacon prays, and no one
else in the room. everyone's praying in this room, back and
forth, back and forth, brothers sisters, again and again and again
and again. they're all involved in it. these are the types of
prayer meetings that change churches and change cities and even perhaps
could change a nation. it's this type of prayer meeting.
and so uh something comes up as they're praying 16-22 the issue
of Judas comes up and replacing him.
so you might say, “well
can we just forget Judas? Can we just forget this happened? can
we just not…let's just erase him from the book. you know, let's
get all the gospels and you know erase it.” you know, they're not
forgetting it. it's not forgotten. and so, because, this is on the
mind of the people there. some somehow there's a big failure.
Boy, could that happen to one of us? could that happen? and they're
praying, but also, what had happened is the 12 becoming
11 uh, it was an inc
omplete number. so they sense God's
leading and Peter stands up and he quotes from the scripture that
what Judas did was already foretold. no surprise. so sometimes
let's just say this, as the church comes to birth, right,
there's people who fail, you might say. there's people who will just
disobey the Lord. but that doesn't stop God's purpose. God is not
stopped by human failure. his work continues. but you got to
find the reasons in the scriptures. what do the scripture say about
why t
hese things happen. that's what you have to do. you can't just
say it's about personality, it's, no it's not, it's what is the
scripture talking about? and so they uh relate to Judas, why these things
happen, and then they have this time of casting of the lots. what
it is, is they had their names on like like a block and they have it
in a container and they shake the container and the first lot to come
out is the person. that's how uh they're they're casting lots in that
way. it’s not lik
e dice, but they have it in some type of vessel
and so uh Matthias' name comes up first. this is pretty encouraging,
because they're asking God to make the choice, and it's it's not
like Peter's the pope. Peter's not the pope. there is no Pope.
Peter's not, “okay guys here's my plan. you're assigned here,
you're assigned there. I'm the CEO here, and you're all like my
servants.” that's not at all what's happening. you might say the
apostles are submitting to the group because it says that
verse 23 they
they put forward two men, that is the group. there were two men
there who met the qualifications of of Apostles. that is, the one
mentioned here is, they had been with the Lord from the time of
the baptism of John til then. somehow these two men had had
stuck around so it was like a consensus. it wasn't dictated.
and so in this consensus they say Lord give us light. verse 24
“which one of these two have you chosen.” this is the way to pray.
“Lord what is your choice. who h
ave you chosen.” you know,
there's all sorts of people in a Christian Church. you can go to
a Christian church, right? you know the people there, just
dressed in certain ways or they're smiling or something, but you
don't know their heart. you really don't know someone's heart. and
think of when David is chosen in 1 Samuel chapter 12 or 12 or 13.
there was like all these sons of Jesse, and the Lord says I didn't,
you know, Samuel is saying, “is this the one Lord?” He says, “no
not that o
ne, not that one. Lord, there's all these. oh there's one
more bring him, David.” and and the Lord says, “that one.” God works
that way. it’s spectacular. but he he chooses those who choose
him. say it like that. God. don't think it's Talent, or it's economics,
or it's your race, or it's your good looks, or it's your bad looks,
or it's any looks, but it's your heart. God's looking for your
heart. when you want him and love him, he will respond to that. so
let's go ahead and share uh the q
uestions. from verse 3, how
many days does the Lord Jesus spend with his disciples before
his Ascension? why did he spend so much time giving many
proofs to his followers of his resurrection and instruction about
the kingdom of God? well like you said he's like preparing them
just like he's like the personal trainer. that's like what I’m mostly
thinking of. just like preparing them for when he leaves and for
the Holy Spirit to come upon them. yes he's preparing them.
can any of us here s
ee a picture of what the church should be like,
a healthy Christian gathering, right. sometimes there’s what a
church should be, and then what it is. two different things sometimes.
but 1 Timothy 3 verse 15 “but in case I am delayed I write so
that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household
of God which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and
support of the truth.” so all of First Timothy is written that Timothy,
Timothy, and others who will read read the lett
er, will know how to
behave in God's house. you have to transfer truth to behavior, but
it's not just a minute. it's not instant. it's it's it's growth.
that's what we we just need to grow with one another. we need to
have time to grow because there's something about growth that will
bring you to maturity and and you don't want to miss the
process. so does any anyone know what the number 40 in scripture
speaks of? the Wilderness? in the Wilderness. what happened in
uh the Wilderness. 40.
it took them 40 years to go through, you
know, when they left Egypt to go through the Wilderness to
the promised land. yes uh what's that 40 what? when Jesus fasted 40
days and 40 nights. the temptation and was tempted of the devil.
in Matthew 4, 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, he fasted.
completion. Noah. what about Noah? 40 days and 40 nights of
rain. it rained on the Earth, was uh 40 days of rain. so 40 has the idea of testing, bringing something
to completion through the test. b
ut you might say Kadesh Barnia,
Book of Numbers 13, chapter numbers 13, 14. it was only a 10
days journey from the the other end of the Red Sea to that point
uh where they were going to later enter. but uh but the Lord makes
them suffer for uh 40 years because (for 40 days) they were
in the…those um 10 spies who gave a bad report. so yes 40 is
a number to remember. but one other thing about this thing about
spending time. do we ever think we're too important to spend time
with someone el
se? but who is the Lord Jesus Christ? all power
is given to Him in heaven and on Earth. He is the greatest man in
the history of the universe and He's hanging out for 40 days in a
limited area, right? in the part of the Roman Empire just a corner—He's
there with them. whoa! like He's here! may God increasingly
fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we spend time with others,
instructing them, helping them in the Kingdom of God, showing them
many convincing proofs of how the blood of the Lam
b has broken
secret sin patterns in your life. show them the proof. show them
that. I’m not saying rehearse all your bad history, but I mean there's
proofs in us. there's proofs. you got to be with each other.
question 2. question 2. from verses 6-7 why is it not helpful or
necessary for the disciples to try and predict the exact timing of his
kingdom? I think it might distract them from what they were trying
to do to just preach the gospel. okay thank you. um anyone else in
the room? I
think that naturally speaking we tend to procrastinate
if we have a deadline or a date to get something done and we like
to do things the last minute. we are to um plan long term but
be ready short term at the same moment. rather than uh worrying
about predicting what is the time, when it is coming, instead
they can worry about the soul. so that that's what I think. yes. our
concern should be for others. God God has a calendar book. he knows
the calendar. he already has a day picked, by t
he way. he's not
going to tell us. it's like here in Luke 12:35 “be dressed in readiness
and keep your lamps lit. be like men who are waiting for
their Master when he returns from the wedding Feast so that they
may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the
alert when he comes.” so from the viewpoint of the New Testament,
uh we are to have an immediate readiness for the Lord's return.
we're to be immediately ready,
but it doesn't mean he returns
immediately. that's not what it means and so Christians can be deeply
misled to think like in 10 minutes we're going. that's not quite
what the what the New Testament teaches in the bigger picture. um
there are times and epochs that are set by by the Father. and there
is a progression of events that especially the Book of Revelation
talks about. so to not know the time is good for us. let's let's
let's know what we need to know, which is witnessing the Lord
's life
to others. the Jews did predict the birth of the Lord and they
were able to from prophecy know where he was going to be born
and when and things like that. so isn't there a place for or
eschatology. yes eschatology is an excellent study, but we just
don't know the answers of exact timing. you can never know
exact timing. you can know the general realm and era. you you
can know the general times. but the exact timing we can't know.
we don't know the exact timing but we know some a
pproximate
things and sequences, like sequence of events, like the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 1, 2, 3, 4. so in in the Book of
Revelation, like even if you read Revelation 14…Revelation 14,
by the way is a synopsis of the events from the taking of the
first fruits to the Judgment at Armageddon. that it's it's all
it's all there. and other parts of Revelation there's counting. first
this, second this, third this, so you'll find that in eschatology.
you'll find a sequence but not so
much the exact timing of things.
so that's where you got to not jump to conclusions. just know
what does help and what is necessary. what is helpful for
us? what's not helpful? what is helpful? God will show us what
is helpful. okay, next question verse uh question 3. from verse
8, what is the Holy Spirit's ministry, now that the Lord Jesus
has ascended to the Father's right hand? why his Holy Spirit
Power required for us to effectively witness about Jesus Christ
and his coming kingdom?
is his ministry the same today as it was
in the book of Acts? yes. I think in John 16 the spirit is to convict
the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. and then also
after that he says that he would glorify Jesus Christ so his ministry,
maybe through us, is to glorify Christ and then in Acts 1 it's to
empower us to be witnesses. well he says in verse 13, “the spirit of
truth will guide you into all the truth.” that's what he's doing. he's
guiding us into all the truth, and all the tr
uth will take all our life,
by the way. all our life and beyond. we're not going to end, but he'll
always be guiding us more and more into the truth. and then
for the world there will be a conviction. uh it's different.
you know, towards a world it’s different. the disciples are being
led, the world's being convicted, two different things happening.
any other things. this is a pretty deep question here. this is a
a triple steak sandwich type of question. so I think, if we, if
we don't ha
ve that…have the Holy Spirit, we're like that expression,
“an empty suit” and we just don't have what we need to really
effectively spread the gospel. I think one of the things that um comes
to mind is the Holy Spirit is Supernatural. yes so the Holy
Spirit power is required because only he can save someone. God
himself saves people. through us. through you, God will work.
so if God wants to work through us, what do we need to be doing
so he can work through us? be open to accepting what
his
guidance is. yes! open to accepting what his guidance is. “but Peter
and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.”
Acts 5:29. “the God of our fathers raised up Jesus who you
had put to death by hanging on the cross and He is the one
who had whom God exalted to the right hand as a prince and a savior
to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, and we
are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God
has given to those who obey Him. receiving h
is direction, right?
receiving his leading is obeying. when you receive his leading,
you're obeying. when you're obeying, God can work through
you because we are not machines, we are people. he will
not overrule your free will. have you ever seen like maybe a movie
of people beating up someone at school and they twist their
arm? they School bullies, and they put…okay, twist your arm. give
me your lunch money. twisting your arm, right? like that. not
so much, you know. God's not into forc
ing us all the time to do
stuff. he may bring a trial, but he wants us to choose because love
will choose. when you choose out of love to receive his direction,
yeah, excellent! then the spirit of God right there. but what needs
to happen for the Spirit to flow through us? so what happens is
we build dams in our life. we build a a dam. we build a blockage.
we put a blockage up and we think my blockage is so beautiful!
it's such a work of art! my blockage. it's like yes! God aren't
I so g
reat! and so, but we're blocking the Spirit of God from
flowing through us. because God doesn't use you because of you.
he wants to move self out of the way. he wants to remove self
through the work of the Cross, so he'll he'll flow through you
unhindered. it doesn't mean he destroys your personality. he
doesn't do that. your personality lives, but self in you gets put to
the side, who you are. he wants to save. but it's the self in us, that's
the problem. so so self is what keeps the Hol
y Spirit from working
through us. and that's why the cross is so important. also you
were saying that when Christ was on Earth he was limited in a
body to minister but through the power of the Holy Spirit he can
work through individuals all over the world so that it's a worldwide
ministry. it's not contained in Jerusalem, that it can go all
over the world, through his Holy Spirit. yes, so the Holy Spirit is
is going to bring the Life of Christ to millions of people in one
minute. in one
moment, millions have the Life of Christ. the Holy Spirit
will do that. isn’t that amazing. only God can do that. how stunningly
great that is! and then, is His ministry the same today as the
book of Acts? yes yes it is! the same today. it is absolutely same
today. now there's a lot to say about that, but just the saying
right here, there's certain ways and certain times the Holy Spirit
can emphasize something, use something, and then maybe not use
it as much. but he certainly is working
the same types of ways.
the proportion, the extent, the amount, can vary depending on
the situation. uh but he is working. he he is absolutely
working. we just have to understand how he works. how is God working.
and and and so the training um will help you understand how
he works. when you're trained, you can recognize the Holy
Spirit work but then you can also recognize what's called counterfeit
Holy Spirit. there's many counterfeit holy spirits in the
world. many counterfeits. and the
y're close to the real thing. we we almost
took a counterfeit $100 bill at our yard sale here like a month
and a half ago. and so we give it back to the person and they wanted
to buy $17 worth of stuff and get $83 worth of real money from
me. I get like…like, take 83 bucks from me with the counterfeit
bill and I take my stuff. I said… but I didn't fully realize
what's going on. I said, “well why don't you come…” they
said “oh, we'll come back with change.” and they never came
back. so ju
st know there are counterfeits. you you cannot be
naive. dear Christian, don't be naive there's counterfeit servants,
there's counterfeit elders, there's counterfeit, all sorts of
things. God has Elders, pastors, teachers. then there's counterfeit
ones too. there's all these count…you just, just know the real
thing. question 4 please. in the corporate prayer meeting God’s
people are bound together. there’s a closeness you get.
using this example of prayer along with other scriptures, why
must
Christians regularly pray together in gatherings and how should
we pray? in Matthew 6, when it says “when you pray do not be
like the hypocrites.” you’re standing and praying, you're
trying to get the most attention to yourself. yes! not drawing attention
to ourself. excellent answer. I agree I have to say Matthew
verse “where two and more gathered.” there is power. I mean
at first, when I first read the question I thought just prayer, in
general. and then I reread it and I thought
oh praying together,
and gathering. there's something sweet about praying together
as a group. um it's also an opportunity to encourage one
another and share your burdens with one another. and you know,
the prayer, the power in that! in the corporate prayer meeting
God's people are bound together. there's a closeness you get. prayer
secures the closeness. prayer gets the closeness more permanent.
if you have divisions and struggles and animosity in a
church, prayer can heal that. God's p
eople praying together. so there's
authority in prayer, with others. that's amazing! do pray on your
own, but find other believers to pray with and encourage your
churches to pray to get together and pray. let's go to question
five. from verses 17-21 Peter highlights the betrayal and
miserable end of Judas. what lessons can we learn from Judas's
failure and end, as we seek to be faithful witnesses in our day?
2 Corinthians 13 says um verse 8 “for we can do nothing against the
truth but o
nly for the truth.” you can never stop the truth. the truth
will march on the victory. it will. God's kingdom will come. his will
will be done. absolutely. it will happen. you just don't want to
get in the way of the steamroller because God's coming. you're not
going to stop it. no amount of bitterness or betrayal towards other
Christians will stop God's will. it'll make you miss out, but not
the Lord. it's just a serious thing and so we just we can, we can be
mature people. we're not nai
ve. do not be naive. do not stop
being a Christian because someone you admire failed. anyone can
fail. God doesn't want anybody to fail. nobody has to fail. nobody
is ordained to betray the Lord. You're not ordained. know that
word about Judas where it says Acts 1 verse 25 “from which Judas
turned aside to go to his own place.” that word “turned aside”
it means to cross a line. there's a boundary and you purposely step
over it. you purposely do it. he crossed the line. he did turn
aside.
and he had turned aside before he led the uh the soldiers
to the Lord at uh that Garden of Gethsemane. he had already turned
sight uh before that moment. you turn aside in your heart first
and then in your action second. but God in his foreknowledge
knows what we're going to do. he knows it all. we can't out smart
him. we can just submit to him in love, and say “Lord you win. I, I
want to do things your way. I don't want to fight against you anymore.”
stop fighting, start in the power of
the Holy Spirit responding
to the scriptures, and he will use you to bring his power to
advance his purposes: his church, his kingdom, his glory, his
rights. God wants his rights in the universe. he will get them, and
today could be day 1 in your life of his rights, or maybe it's day
1,000, but just continue the days uh where he is getting his rights in
you. let's go ahead and uh close in prayer.
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