Intro to Acts 4:1-31

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/18/2017 10:59 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus: Intro to Acts 4:1-31

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  Acts 4:1-31

            Message of the verses: Because there are many verses in this section I will not copy and paste them onto this SD, but we will look at them as we move forward in this section.

            John MacArthur entitles this chapter in his commentary on Acts “How to Handle Persecution.”  In his introduction he talks about how in the first century there were many, many believers who were killed for their faith in very difficult circumstances, and the amazing thing  is that those who were killed for their faith went to their death with calmness and serenity and did catch the eye of those who were doing the torching.  A couple of weeks ago our Pastor who has been preaching through the 11^th chapter of Hebrews got to verses 32-38 and he had two messages from these verses.  He broke his messages up because the first part of these verses spoke of OT saints who lived what could be called normal lives as they walked by faith, and then the last part of this section told of those who were persecuted.  When he got to the last section he brought up some things from a book he had read that took place in the Soviet Union was persecuting Christians.  The story was told of a beautiful woman who was a believer and two who were beating her because she was attending Christian services.  After a while the one man was about to beat her again and the first man made him stop as he said that she was better than we are.  Eventually the man who wrote the book became a believer because he saw something different in her, something he wanted.

            John MacArthur writes “In modern times the church (at least in the West) has rarely faced physical persecution.  Satan’s attacks have become much more subtle—they type of attack detailed, for example, in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Instead of threatening the body, Satan’s persecutions today aim at the ego.  They threaten our selfish pride, need for acceptance, or status.  Satan has largely destroyed the spiritual effectiveness of the church without having to kill the individual believers in it.  In fact, letting believers live self-centered, complacent, indolent, worldly lives is more effective in keeping people from being attracted to the Christian faith than killing them.  Martyrs are respected for the strength of their character; compromisers are despised.”

            As we look at this forth chapter of Acts we will see that it did not take a very long time for the persecution to begin in the early church days as the same people who put the Lord Jesus Christ to death were the ones who were persecuting His followers.  Jesus said the following in John 15:18-20:

“18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ’A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”

            We see also in John 16:2 Jesus warned “They will make you outcast from the synagogue, but and hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.”  We know from history that this statement He made was true.

            In 2 Timothy 3:12 and 1 Peter 2:21 we see that the apostles also taught that persecutions would come.

            “Acts chapter 4 records the first outbreak of persecution against the church.  Verses 1-31 can be simply divided into two sections: the persecution manifest and the persecution met.”

            Needless to say that these two sections will have to be broken up into a number of Spiritual Diaries, so we will begin to look at the first part in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  My prayer when it comes to persecutions in my life time has always been that the Lord keep me strong if and when persecution comes to me.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will give me the grace each day that I need to serve Him in a way that will bring honor and glory to His name.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “He was born a citizen” (Acts 22:27-28).

Today’s Bible question:  “What touched Jesus in Hebrews 4:15?”

Answer in our next SD.

9/18/2017 11:43 AM