FBC Daily Devotional – January 6, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, good Thursday morning to you. I hope your day is going well so far today. I just wanted to share a few thoughts from Acts chapters 22 and 3.

00:15

This is the account where the Apostle Paul has wrapped up his address to those who are expressing some hostility toward him out in the crowd, out in the square, the public square.

00:31

And remember how that happened. You know, there's this almost like a mob scene and people getting all upset and everything at Paul and they're practically ready to kill him until the

00:43

Roman soldiers step in and rescue Paul from them. And as Paul is being taken into safekeeping, he says, let me talk to the people.

00:54

So he turns around and he addresses the people and he speaks in their language, of course, and he's communicating his testimony.

01:02

We looked the other day at that testimony itself. That was a very dramatic testimony. He shared it with this crowd and they listened.

01:09

They listened very intently. They knew this man. They knew that he was a very devout

01:16

Jew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and they knew he had changed. They knew he'd become a

01:21

Christian. So they listened to his testimony and they listened with great interest. They didn't get mad at his testimony.

01:29

But after he shared his testimony, he shared how he had seen this vision of the

01:35

Lord from the Lord. And in the course of that vision, he gave, the

01:40

Lord gave to Paul his mission, his mission, what he's to do with his life.

01:48

And as he's starting to tell that vision to the crowd, they're listening, they're accepting that until he gets to this point where he says, where the

02:00

Lord says to Paul, he, the Lord said to me, depart, for I will send you away from here to the

02:09

Gentiles. Now, just to make sure we understand here, the

02:14

Gentiles are anybody who's not a Jew. So, you know, the Jews were, you know, they just had this thing about the

02:22

Gentiles, you know, and they were fine with what Paul said up until he, up until he claims that God told him,

02:31

I'm going to send you away from here to the Gentiles. I'm going to, I'm going to send you to take the message of the gospel, the good news of the gospel to turn people from darkness to light.

02:43

I'm going to send you with that message to the Gentiles. That's when things got out of hand at that point.

02:52

It says in verse 22, they listened to him until this word, the word

02:57

Gentiles, and then they raised their voices and they said away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live.

03:08

Then as they cried out and tore off their clothes and they threw dust into the air.

03:14

So man, isn't it amazing how human prejudices can be aroused and once they are, how hostile someone can be here at the slightest reference to the hated person or group, the

03:32

Gentiles, the idea that a Jew would be sent on a divine mission for the benefit of the

03:42

Gentiles that, that just, that sent them over the edge. They could, they couldn't take that.

03:48

Not the Gentiles, those despised, despicable, dirty, filthy, non -Jewish people that this person,

03:57

Paul, he ought to die for saying such a thing as that. Oh, may the Lord deliver us from such hatred toward others, whoever they may be, whoever they may be.

04:09

And the sad thing is that these people who are calling for the death of Paul, the

04:17

Jewish people, and the leadership of the Jewish people, they didn't realize that one of the tasks, one of the responsibilities of the nation of Israel as a whole was to be a lighthouse to the

04:31

Gentiles. What was to draw people unconverted, non -Jewish people to draw people to the one true

04:42

God that they might be converted from their paganism to follow, to believe and follow and trust in the one true

04:50

God, their God. They had totally lost sight of that mission, totally lost it completely.

04:59

Well, God gave it clearly to Paul and he's determined to, he's determined to pursue that mission.

05:05

That is reprehensible to the prejudiced. May the

05:10

Lord deliver us from that kind of prejudicial spirit. And then

05:16

I also wanted to just point out a couple of things in Psalm 2. We read Psalm 2 today in our reading and you know, it struck me how fitting that Psalm is for our day and age.

05:29

Why do the nation's rage and the people's imagine a vain, empty thing against our

05:36

God? Mankind as a whole, as a whole loathes submitting to divine authority.

05:45

Do not want to do it. But that's especially loathsome when it becomes national policy.

05:54

The kings of the earth rage, the kings of the earth set themselves against the

06:00

Lord and against his anointed one, the Lord Jesus Christ. When top governmental officials do this and when the policy of the land is established, that is in defiance of God's word and what

06:12

God has to say, this is loathsome. This is grievous when such a state exists and such a state exists.

06:24

It's becoming more and more the course of action in our own nation.

06:31

Not just freedoms are being eroded, but biblical principle is being completely discarded.

06:39

The laws of God are despised. You know, so you have abortion rights and you have same -sex marriages and all of that kind of stuff that is clearly an abomination to the

06:56

Lord. I mean, his word says it is, and yet we don't want to hear it. We don't want to hear it.

07:02

When one of the top governmental officials says, we don't have any use for God's will in this place.

07:10

Speaking of in this official governmental setting, no place for it.

07:17

Well, when that's the case, you know, how does God respond to that? Psalm two tells us he laughs, he laughs.

07:24

These people think that they're so powerful. They think there's something else. They think they're so great. They think that just at their whim or their will, they can eradicate me from their nation.

07:35

Oh, little do we know, little do we understand and comprehend that the sovereign

07:41

God is sovereign over our nation, over every leader in position in the state and federal level, every one of them.

07:52

They may cast him off. They may not want to have anything to do with him, but God has them in the palm of his hand, turning their heart where he wills for the good or sometimes the ill of the people of the land.

08:09

Not so bold and brazen when they're standing before God. He says, kiss the son, bow before the son, respect and reverence the son, the

08:18

Lord Jesus Christ. That day will come. That day will come. All right. So Psalm 2, a fitting

08:24

Psalm for our day and our age, our nation and would God that our national leaders would bow the knee before the

08:32

King, King Jesus and honor him and his word. Well, Father, I pray today,

08:39

I pray that you would deliver us who claim to be your people from the kind of hatred of prejudicial thinking that despises others just because of who they are.

08:52

I pray that we would see them as instead of souls who need the savior. Father, I pray for our nation today.

08:58

I pray for our leaders. I pray that they would make good decisions that reflect the principles of your word and go in an opposite direction of where our nation is headed in these last several years.

09:12

And this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your