God Loves Everyone

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                  Acts 2:5 – 13

God Loves Everyone

by Robert T. Cooper

Some people find themselves deeply moved by patriotic songs such as “God Bless America” and “God Bless the U.S.A.” Some people realize that God loves the little children of the world, and so don’t want to single out the United States when asking for God’s blessings. There are even bumper stickers that say, “God Bless Everyone, No Exceptions.” Yet many in the first group are uncomfortable asking God to bless nations that publicly declare their desire to eradicate the United States and all Americans. What do we learn from the Bible?

1.      God doesn’t take sides.

When Joshua was getting ready to conquer the Promised Land, he experienced a theophany, a human manifestation of the pre-incarnate Christ. Joshua asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” The Lord answered, “Neither.”

God has His own agenda and is working out His own purposes. It is normal for Him to use believers to carry out His plans, but He is not limited to believers. He sometimes uses unbelievers.

2.      Jesus died for everyone.

God so loved the world. The Gospel was to be taken to the uttermost part of the earth. We might argue about predestination and free will, but we need to take the message of the Savior to every individual on the planet. All need the opportunity to hear and accept the Plan of Salvation. Jonah prophesied to Israelites and to Ninevites (the sworn enemies of the Israelites) alike. We need to tell everyone about Jesus.

3.      Heaven will include some from every people group.

Eternity will consist of those from every tribe and tongue (language) and people and nation. There will be saved people of every ethnicity and dialect. No exceptions. We will join in a chorus of praise before the throne of our God.

Acts 2 talks about Jews being at Pentecost from every nation. There were 15 foreign language groups of Jews who heard the 120 sharing Christ, each person in his own heart language. Yet we know from elsewhere in Scripture that this was simply a foreshadowing of how God was going to win at least some folks from everywhere you can imagine.

So we don’t just take the Gospel to friendly countries or to those who love us in return. God loves everybody. We take the Good News to friend and foe alike.

Some pray for a different continent each day, praying for the people in every country, people of every language group, and people of every ethnicity. They pray for people to place their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They include closed countries and hostile regimes. What do you think of praying like that?

Closer to home, to whom do you think God would have you to witness next?

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:14

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

by Robert T. Cooper

 

I had been a member of this Glee Club in college. Now I was a graduate, attending one of their concerts in Dallas. There was a fellow still in that choir who had been in the choir at the same time I was. When the concert ended, this fellow made a beeline for me. He wanted to let me know that he had in the intervening time placed his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My friend is still walking with Christ today. Sometimes we “accidentally” discover that someone has become a fellow believer in Christ.

 

Acts 1:14 mentions some people who were in this 24/7 prayer meeting during the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. We aren’t surprised to find the Apostles there. We aren’t surprised to find Mary, the mother of Jesus, there. It isn’t even particularly surprising to find “the women” there. (This was a substantial group of women who traveled around with Jesus and His disciples during the 3½ year ministry of Jesus. They frequently were the source for funding for the ministry.)

 

But we are surprised to discover that Jesus’ four brothers were part of the prayer meeting. The last we had heard of these brothers, they had been taunting Jesus about how He behaved as a public figure, taunting because they were not believers in Jesus or in His mission. In fact, at the crucifixion, Jesus gave a verbal will as He hung on the cross. He gave the care of His mother to John, the youngest of the Apostles, rather than to any of His brothers. Yet here, not two months later, the four brothers are with the Apostles at the prayer meeting.

 

What had happened? How had they turned from mockers into disciples? Frankly, the Bible does not tell us. It is a mystery, and will remain so until we see them and can ask them for ourselves. Yet they were converted. And when Luke mentions they were participants in the prayer meeting, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. He just sort of slips them in there. Moreover, two of those brothers ended up writing books of the New Testament. One of those brothers ended up being the Senior Pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, pastor of the Twelve Apostles.

 

It is not an uncommon thing. The person it never occurred to you would eventually come to faith in Christ does become a believer. In fact, God seems to enjoy bringing salvation to unlikely candidates. So don’t give up on people. Perhaps all won’t be converted, but you never know. Only God knows.

 

In the Comments section, we’d love to hear any stories you may have of someone who came to faith in Christ, someone He just sort of slipped in there.

Power: Dynamite or Dynamo?

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:8

Power: Dynamite or Dynamo?

by Robert T. Cooper

When most preachers speak on Acts 1:8, they will mention that the word for “power” is dunamin. Then most preachers will mention that this is the word from which we get our modern English word, “dynamite.” Some preachers are quite comfortable with this comparison. In their minds, the Holy Spirit gave the first believers an explosive power that resulted in the spread of the Gospel across the known world in one generation.

Other preachers are quite uncomfortable comparing Holy Spirit power to dynamite. These preachers find dynamite to have a bad connotation. They find it a symbol of destruction. One might say that in many places the Gospel destroyed the old worldview and the old way of living. It destroyed idolatry and false religion. It was destructive to immorality. But that seems to be grasping at straws in order to hang onto an analogy that does not quite work.

With the construction of modern turbines and electric-generation facilities, a better choice of a modern term might be “dynamo.” When one reconsiders the spread of the Gospel during the years immediately following Pentecost, the Gospel did not exactly explode across the known world. The year in which Pentecost occurred, it is not apparent that any of the new disciples left Jerusalem for several months. When they finally did leave, it was because of the persecution instigated by Saul of Tarsus. At that time, while Luke doesn’t report foreign disciples finally returning to their homes, most must have done so. But the domestic disciples didn’t scatter far, perhaps in a radius of 100 – 200 miles. And still the Apostles were hanging back in Jerusalem.

No, the spread of the Gospel in that first generation was more like a dynamo than like dynamite. It may have taken a couple of decades, but the Gospel did make it from England to Ethiopia, from Iberia to India, and perhaps beyond.

Still, what the verse says has more to do with the manner in which the Holy Spirit will empower disciples than with the speed of the spread of the Gospel. The witness of the disciples would be empowered.

Which brings us to the crucial questions. Why is it that in our sight there are only a few people whose witness appears to be empowered by the Holy Spirit? Should we not expect the witness of every disciple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be empowered? Shouldn’t my witness be empowered?

The first couple of decades of my Christian witness, I considered myself to be a 30-fold disciple. In Jesus’ parable of the Sower and the Seed, the seed sown on good soil produces crops, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, and some 100-fold. I figured that over the course of my life, if the Lord blessed, perhaps 30 people might come to a saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But then a few years ago I found myself in a situation in which there were several people coming to faith. It seemed to me that the Lord had blessed that I might be a 60-fold disciple. I am so grateful for what the Lord has done, and I give Him all the credit, all the glory.

What about you? If you are only a 30-fold disciple, that is still a witness empowered by the Holy Spirit. Face it! There is no getting out of it! You and I might not be 100-fold disciples, but our witness is still dynamic; the message of salvation is still spreading. Perhaps it is like yeast in a lump of dough, hard to realize what is happening until the whole lump is leavened. And still the Holy Spirit is empowering our witness.

Questions: Can you tell at all that the Holy Spirit is empowering your witness? In what ways?

Wondering How to Pray

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:7

Wondering How to Pray

by Robert T. Cooper

There have been a lot of distressing times throughout the centuries, times when believers wondered whether the end of the age was at hand. Many-a Sunday morning a couple of us sit around and discuss whether the Lord might send another Great Awakening to our nation or whether God’s judgment will require Him to bring about the conquest and enslavement of our country. Then ruminating over world conditions we wonder whether He will raise another nation or whether He will bring about the Day of Judgment and the Glorious Appearing.

In our hearts, we don’t particularly want the second option, the conquest of the United States. I guess our preference is the Great Awakening as we know so many who need Jesus and salvation. We aren’t selfish; we’d be happy for the Great Awakening to spread across the entire world and last longer than any previous Awakening. But we would also be excited to be the generation that sees that Great and Glorious Day. We would love to experience God’s Kingdom in its fullness.

But just like the Eleven did not know and could not know whether Jesus would bring about God’s Kingdom in the days following the Resurrection, so can we not know what our Lord intends, neither in the short term or the long term. This may be the year the Chinese or the Muslims or the Hispanics take over America. On the other hand, the US may last 200 more years or even 2000 more years. Jesus may come at any moment, or it may be 20,000 more years. We just have to be ready as though it will be today.

So how is one to pray? For the most part we have settled for expressing to God the Father those things that are the options that we know about, assuring our commitment that His will be done, but then mentioning our preferences if only for the record. Ultimately the prayer boils down to, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Questions: How do you pray regarding the end of the age? Does this approach to prayer apply to anything besides Judgment Day?