At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the good news.My Understanding: The song the Lord woke me with this morning has to do with the two greatest commandments to love God and to love other people as we love ourselves. So, it is with that theme of loving God and others that I will discuss this passage of scripture this morning and how it relates to that subject.
Effective Speaking
Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue where they had the freedom to speak and to share the gospel message. It was not like our churches today. There were places inside the temple area where people could speak publicly and were invited to do so and where people gathered to hear them speak. Jesus often spoke in the temple courts. Recorded in the Bible are accounts of the disciples speaking on the porch area, which seemed to be a common place for such informal speeches. I wish the church today was more like that. It is supposed to be more like that in that, when the church meets together, people with the gift of prophecy should be permitted to speak and to share what the Lord is teaching them and what the Lord has laid on their hearts for the church, too. So much of today’s institutional church is so structured that the Holy Spirit has no room to work and to speak through men and women, because church meetings today often do not allow for that kind of freedom in the Spirit. Yet, the temple area appeared to allow for this to a point.
When Paul and Barnabas spoke, they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed in Jesus Christ. Obviously they spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit, because only the Spirit of God has the power to convict men’s hearts and to draw men to faith in Jesus Christ. Yet, there were those among them who refused to believe, so they poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against these godly brothers in Christ. This is human nature of the worst kind, I believe, in that it is not content with sinning alone but must drag others down with it. They didn’t want to believe so they didn’t want others to believe either, so they made up lies about the apostles in order to draw other people away from the truth of the gospel message and to bring them down to their own level of unbelief. And, there will be those today, as well, even in the church, who will refuse to believe in Jesus or who will refuse to believe in the true gospel (the full gospel) message and will want to water down the gospel so that they can continue to do whatever that allows them to do, and they will often poison the minds of others who might be led to believe the full gospel, otherwise, because they want others to be where they are so they feel less guilty about themselves.
An Opportunity
I like the word that came next. The scripture says, “So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord.” The word “so” means “the reason for an action or situation, or its result.” They not only did not let this discourage them, but it was a springboard for them to motivate them to be even more determined in sharing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, as we face opposition from sinful men, it should also strengthen us in our resolve to continue faithfully in obedience to Christ and to not let the opinions of men discourage and/or to feel somehow that men have power over us to stop us, for the only power men have is what is given to them or is allowed to them by God. If God wants us to speak, he will open the doors for us to speak, because what God opens no man can shut, and what God shuts, no man can open, so we should, like Paul and Barnabas, use persecution and opposition as a springboard to strengthen our resolve to be even more vigilant in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and in obeying our Lord Jesus.
The people were divided. Some were for the apostles and some against, and we, too, will face opposition when we are fully obeying our Lord Jesus in sharing the full gospel message. So, we will have those who will be with us and those who will be against us. In addition to this “for and against,” from the people, the apostles also faced the real possibility of having their lives taken from them for their commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which many believers throughout the world face on a daily basis, but that we have not had to face much to that extreme here in the USA, though I believe our time is coming, too. Yet, there is much persecution and rejection of the Lord’s messengers in the church today. Those who are preaching the full gospel message often come under persecution and rejection because much of the church has embraced the teachings of men and a watered-down gospel message in order to attract the world to the church, but they are merely attracting the world to more of the world, only maybe just a cleaned up version.
Continuing to Preach
Paul and Barnabas found out about the plot, so they fled to other cities where they continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, i.e. the good news of salvation from sins via Jesus’ shed blood for us on the cross and via our faith in Jesus Christ. There they healed a man who had been crippled in his feet, because they saw that he had the faith to believe. The crowd deemed “god” status upon the apostles, but they tore their clothes and rushed to the crowd and told the people that they were just men; humans like the people who were trying to make them into gods. Most of us will probably not be idolized to the point to where we are declared to be gods, but it is possible that we may have a following or we may have people who want to glorify us and give the honor for what we do to us rather than to God, and it is so important that we always give the praise back to God for what we know he alone has done in us and through us, for we are all sinners. So, sometimes we may face this kind of overpraise of men and it will serve as an opportunity for us to humble ourselves before God and man and to give credit where credit is due, rather than taking it for ourselves.
I liked what the apostles said to the crowd. They said, “We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. There were many that the people called “god,” so it was important to specify which “god” they were referring to, i.e. they were talking about the one and only true God and creator of all that lives. This God, the One and Only, is the giver of life to all men. And, the “Good News” of the gospel that the apostles were preaching was that the people must turn from the worthless things of their lives, such as idolatry, and they must turn to follow the One true God instead. And, this is why the apostles were being persecuted. It was because they were telling people they had to give up their lives of sin and they had to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience. The watered down gospel says that repentance and obedience are not necessary for salvation and that God is pleased with us no matter what we do, yet the “Good News” that the apostles preached was one that required turning from (repentance) sin and turning to follow the Lord Jesus, to obey him.
More Opposition
Then, some of the Jews won the crowd over and they stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. Wow! They were calling him a god one minute and were stoning him nearly to death the next. This reminds me of the crowd who was waving palm branches at Jesus and shouting “Hosanna” one day, and less than a week later they were calling for Jesus to be crucified. And, we will face this, too, when we are committed to the full gospel of Jesus Christ or even if we are not, because human nature can be so fickle and they can love us one minute and turn against us the next, just like they did Jesus.
Yet, Paul survived, and he went back into the city. Wow! They just tried to kill him, yet he went back. He didn’t let that intimidate him. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then, they went back to Lystra where the people there had stoned Paul and had left him for dead. The apostles went back in order to strengthen and encourage the disciples to remain true to the faith. So, even though some of the people there had been poisoned against the apostles and even though they had stoned Paul and had left him for dead, still Paul and Barnabas went back into the city because they wanted to use this as an opportunity to encourage and strengthen the believers there and to let them know that, as followers of Jesus Christ, many hardships awaited them. This is love!
Jesus never promised us that our lives would be easy if we followed him. In fact, he told us we would be persecuted, abandoned, rejected and mistreated because of him and because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so if everyone likes us and thinks we are awesome, then maybe we need to see if perhaps we are not standing out in being lights for the true gospel like we are supposed to be in order to lead men and women to leave their lives of sin and to follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his commands.
So, what does this have to do with loving God and loving others? – Everything! We show we love God when we obey him, when we feed his sheep, when we are his witnesses, when we bring hope and healing to others, when we care about the needs of others, and their most important need of all is to be told the real “Good News” of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that they, too, can come to know Jesus and can be set free from sin and can be free to love, honor and obey God, too. The greatest love there is, is when we are willing to give of our lives, our reputations, our wants, our earthly dreams and pleasures and our time and energies to share with people the only hope they will ever know that will free them from lives of sin and will give them eternal life with God in heaven. That is what the apostles did and that is what we are called to do, too, forsaking our old lives and going forward in God’s grace and love in ministering Christ’s love and his gospel to a world in need of the Savior.
God’s Great Commands / An Original Work / July 10, 2011
Loving God and loving others
Are the Lord God’s great commands.
On these rest all of the others;
Live by them and you’ll not fail.
Be a witness, share the gospel,
Be a light in this dark world.
Share the love of Jesus always
To a world who has not heard.
Serving others; be like Jesus;
Wash their feet and pray with them.
Be a healer; mend their hurts and
Show them how to turn from sin.
Be a living example of
How to live for Jesus Christ,
Walking with Him in His footsteps,
Leading others to new life.
Give to God and give to others
Of yourselves in ev’ry way.
Obey your Lord, do His bidding;
Bow your knees and humbly pray.
Pray for others to know Jesus.
Tell how they can be set free
Of their sins and live for Jesus;
Walk with Him eternally.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, song lyrics and sheet music at:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs/home/songs/god-s-great-commands
Song on video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DWGg3-NvEE
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