Behold, marvel

Acts 13:16-41 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible (link on links page)

¹⁶ Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said,

“Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen: ¹⁷ The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out from it.¹⁸ For a period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness.¹⁹ When He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He distributed their land as an inheritance—all of which took about four hundred and fifty years.²⁰ After these things He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.²¹ Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.²² After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’²³ From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus,²⁴ after John had proclaimed before His coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.²⁵ And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. But behold, one is coming after me the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

²⁶ “Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. ²⁷ For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him.²⁸ And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed.²⁹ When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.³⁰ But God raised Him from the dead;³¹ and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.³² And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers,³³ that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; today i have begotten You.’³⁴ As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holyandsureblessingsof David.’³⁵ Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will notallow YourHoly One toundergo decay.’³⁶ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay;³⁷ but He whom God raised did not undergo decay.³⁸ Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,³⁹ and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.⁴⁰ Therefore take heed, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you:

⁴¹ ‘Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish;
For I am accomplishing a work in your days,
A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’”

You can tell that the apostles never went to school to learn how to preach. They didn’t open their sermons with a catchy introduction, a humorous story or a joke. They didn’t read a list of things they found on the internet. The apostles simply shared the story of the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were as Jesus had instructed them to be, His witnesses. They declared, from   the scriptures, which are what we know as the Old Testament, proving that Jesus truly was the promised one, the Messiah, sent by God for the salvation and blessing of all people. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian church, in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. ² For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.³ I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,⁴ and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,⁵ so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. 

Not resting on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Those are the two things on which  we can make our case to the world, the wisdom of man, and so our own ability to articulate that wisdom and knowledge, or the power of God.  Paul said in his letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:1-5

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. ² For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,³ unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,⁴ treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,⁵ holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power

Paul continues in the same letter to Timothy exhorting him to faithfully preach. 2 Timothy 4:1-5      I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: ² preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,⁴ and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.⁵ But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Far too often, in the church today one or both of these warnings from Paul are being played out on a regular basis. Either there is so little evidence of the power of  God at work in the church that there is nothing else to rely on but the wisdom and training of man. Or there is a fear on the part of the leaders in the church that the people will not endure sound doctrine. Our culture has become so entertainment oriented that many churches feel the need to entertain in order to keep people coming back. Church then becomes more of a program, an event with every word and action planned and choreographed.

To that end, I am thankful that I am not trained by the wisdom of men to tell the story of Christ. My desire is to allow the Spirit to lead, resting in Him to do as Jesus promised in Luke 12: 11-12:     “do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

I do pray though both for myself and for every church and everyone who ministers and shares the testimony of God, the life, works and words of Jesus, as Paul said Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the grave, I pray that there would be the power of God, the Holy Spirit working in and through God’s people. Signs and wonders to confirm the truth, the sound doctrine.

If the power of God is present and evident there will be no need to entertain, there will be no need to concern ourselves with whether the truth might be rejected or called offensive. In the presence of the power of the Almighty God, at work through the Holy Spirit and the body of Christ, we will see what the early church saw. God will add to the church daily and many will come to know and believe that Jesus is the Christ.  Amen