Are We Operating in the Power of God?

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace. The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along. Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Acts 3 and the Healing of the Lame Man

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today, we're going to be looking at Acts chapter three. So if you want to open up your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter three, wanna begin with a little bit of a story before we read our text.

The story goes like this. There was a time when Thomas Aquinas, one of the great minds of Christian history, was speaking with the Pope and the Pope was showing Thomas all of the wonders of the grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church.

He was showing him all that the church had amassed as far as wealth and power. And according to the legend, the Pope said to Aquinas, you see, we can no longer say silver and gold, have we none? And Thomas replied, yes, but we can also no longer say rise and walk.

Well, that story, whether how true it is or not, comes as a reference to our text for today. We're going to be looking at Acts chapter three and we're going to be looking at verses one to 10. It says, now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.

And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms.

And Peter directly directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, look at us. And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have, I give to you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong, and leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

This is a beautiful story. It's a wonderful narrative. And this is, and again, an event which was later referenced when the Pope said to Thomas Aquinas, look, we can no longer say silver and gold, have I none?

And Thomas said, yes, but we can also no longer say rise and walk. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about the fact that we see some things in the early church that are miraculous, and in very real sense, we don't see those miracles happening anymore.

The Apostolic Era and the Cessation of Miraculous Sign Gifts

Now, I do know that there are people who claim to work miracles. And personally, I believe that many of those people are fraudulent and that they are bilking the people of God for money. And if you're interested in going deeper into that subject, I would recommend to you Justin Peters and his ministry.

He does a wonderful lesson called Clouds Without Water, in which he demonstrates the false teachings of many so-called faith healers of today. And there is a movie that came out a few years ago called American Gospel that seeks to point out many of the false claims of the false teachers, not only by their claims of miracles, but also their claims of what they're preaching and teaching, much of which is false.

And so again, the purpose of this video is not to prove or disprove the existence of faith healers today, but to simply point out that there was something that was very special about the early church and what we would define as the apostolic era.

The apostolic era was the time between the resurrection and ascension of Christ and the death of the last apostle, which would have been John. That period lasts from about 30 to about somewhere in the 90s in the first century.

So we're looking at a period of less than 100 years that we would identify as the apostolic era. And that particular time in history is notable for being filled with all sorts of miraculous events. We see miracles in the life of Christ.

We see miracles that are done as we see here in the life of the apostles. Even the apostle Paul had done miracles. He raised the dead. He was bitten by a serpent and it did not harm him. There were certain things that happened in the first century that were, by every measurement, truly and purely miraculous.

But were those miracles intended to go on for all time? And was that meant to mark the church down throughout the history of the church? I would say no. I would say miracles are always the exception and not the rule.

And even when we look back through the history of the Old Testament, we see that there were miracles then, but the miracles were not normative. They were always exceptional. They were not the regular event, but they were something that happened that was exceptional and special when they did happen.

The Church's Wealth, Power, and the Loss of Spiritual Power

But getting back to the interaction between the interaction that I mentioned between the Pope and Thomas Aquinas, there is something to be learned from that interaction though. Because when the Pope said, "'Silver and gold have I none,' and Thomas Aquinas famously quipped, "'Yes, and neither can we say rise and walk.'".

What Thomas was hitting on, not so much was the end of the era of the miraculous or what we would call the cessation of the miraculous sign gifts, but what Thomas was really hitting on, I think, and I think it's something to consider, is the reality that we do live in an age where the church has, and even then, and we're talking Thomas Aquinas almost a thousand years ago, the time when the church is very wealthy and very powerful, and we see wealth and power, but we don't see power in the pulpit.

We don't see power in the messages. We don't see power there. We see monetary strength. We see sometimes political influence, but where's the power, the true power of God? Why are we not seeing the power of God moving?

And I think part of the answer is in what Thomas Aquinas said. I think there's a very real sense in which the power of the church is gone because we have become satisfied in the silver and gold of this world.

You see, if we're satisfied with what this world has to give, we'll never be satisfied in God. And if we are content with the power that this world provides, then we'll never be seeking after the power of God.

True Power in Gospel Proclamation and Satisfaction in God

And again, I want to be very careful here. When I talk about the power of God, what am I referring to? I'm talking about true, powerful gospel proclamation. You see, a lot of people won't proclaim the gospel.

A lot of ministers won't proclaim the gospel. Why? Because they're afraid. Some of them are afraid that they might lose their influence. Some of them have a lot of political pressure. Some of them have financial pressure that keeps them from speaking the truth.

And therefore, they don't preach with the power of God. Again, what did Aquinas say? If you can't say silver and gold, have I none, then you can't say rise and walk. The power of God is gone. And I hope what I'm saying is making sense, because again, the point of all of this is to say, there is something that is missing in so many churches and in the life of so many believers.

And that is the true sense of the power of God in the life of the believer. Do you feel empowered when you go and share the gospel? Do you feel empowered when you come and worship? And when I use the word empowered, please know that I'm using this word in a very specific sense.

What I mean is, do you feel the connection that God is working through you in these things? And the only way for that to happen, the only way to know that the power of God is working is that you have made Him your pursuit.

To be satisfied in God is the most important pursuit that we can have. But so many of us are not satisfied in God. We look for other pursuits to satisfy us. And remember this, and as I get older, I'm beginning to appreciate this more, what John Piper said many years ago.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. And I think that that's true. And I think that we see the work of God more in our lives and the power of God more in our lives when we are more satisfied in Him, when we find in Him our treasure, rather than the silver and the gold of this world.

Is our treasure in God? And if so, are we seeing that God is actually working in our lives and we can actually experience in God on a real level? I think that's an important question. And I think that's a question that we should all be asking ourselves.

Are we satisfied in God or are we looking for things of this world to satisfy our deepest desires? I hope today has been an encouragement to you. I hope it's caused some introspection and hopefully that these daily Bible studies are a blessing to you.

Thank you for watching Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist. Thank you for watching this episode.

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