PERSECUTION AND PRAYER (27 OF 56)
Scripture: Acts 12:1-5
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Persecution and Prayer (27 of 56)
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 12:1-5
Read Acts 12:1-5
Johann Spangenberg, a lesser known reformer, once pointed to the weather as an analogy for the way that persecutions come and go in the life of the early Church.
Christianity is like April weather, which is erratic and changes nearly every hour: now it is snowing, soon it begins to rain, now the sun is shining, but then it is cloudy. So it went in the early church: Christ preached in Judea and Galilee in good peace for a season, then came a storm. Christ was imprisoned, crucified and killed. But this storm dissipated quickly, Christ arose from the dead, ascended to heaven, sent his Holy Spirit. Whenever the dear Son shone, the Christians rejoiced, but before they could look around, it thundered and there was lightning again! But this thunder and lightning also had an end; the dear Son broke out again.
I daresay we might extend this analogy to our own day as well. Honestly, which of us does not turn on the news with some hesitation these days, praying that we do not see yet another person in an orange jump suit on their knees beside a knife-wielding member of Isis? Some of these men are journalists, of course, but many of them have been Christians, and there can be no doubt that the Church has been the special object of Isis' murderous rage.
The early Church experienced the same unsettling dynamic. They knew not what would come from one day to the next, so they rooted and grounded themselves in the changeless person of Christ Jesus the Lord. There were periods of suffering. There were periods of peace. But the secret of the Church was that it transcended these temporal things and took its hope from the very throne of Heaven, at the right hand of which Christ was interceding for His people.
The Church suffers as a result of the political calculations of wicked men.
There is a uniquely political element in the persecution described in ...
Series: The Church in ACTSion
Wyman Richardson
Acts 12:1-5
Read Acts 12:1-5
Johann Spangenberg, a lesser known reformer, once pointed to the weather as an analogy for the way that persecutions come and go in the life of the early Church.
Christianity is like April weather, which is erratic and changes nearly every hour: now it is snowing, soon it begins to rain, now the sun is shining, but then it is cloudy. So it went in the early church: Christ preached in Judea and Galilee in good peace for a season, then came a storm. Christ was imprisoned, crucified and killed. But this storm dissipated quickly, Christ arose from the dead, ascended to heaven, sent his Holy Spirit. Whenever the dear Son shone, the Christians rejoiced, but before they could look around, it thundered and there was lightning again! But this thunder and lightning also had an end; the dear Son broke out again.
I daresay we might extend this analogy to our own day as well. Honestly, which of us does not turn on the news with some hesitation these days, praying that we do not see yet another person in an orange jump suit on their knees beside a knife-wielding member of Isis? Some of these men are journalists, of course, but many of them have been Christians, and there can be no doubt that the Church has been the special object of Isis' murderous rage.
The early Church experienced the same unsettling dynamic. They knew not what would come from one day to the next, so they rooted and grounded themselves in the changeless person of Christ Jesus the Lord. There were periods of suffering. There were periods of peace. But the secret of the Church was that it transcended these temporal things and took its hope from the very throne of Heaven, at the right hand of which Christ was interceding for His people.
The Church suffers as a result of the political calculations of wicked men.
There is a uniquely political element in the persecution described in ...
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