Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

Sometimes human leaders tell us to do things God has told us not to do, or they tell us to stop doing things God has told us we must do. And then they force us to choose whether we will obey them or God. By nature, Christians prefer to be peaceful and obey civil and religious authorities, and the Bible tells us that under normal circumstances that’s the way we should live (Ro 13:1-7). But there may be times when the spiritual health of a leader declines or the mood of a culture or society darkens to the point that open hostility arises toward the God of the Bible. His moral standards and His claim to be our rightful ruler and judge always has, and will until this age ends, offend unbelievers. What seems so right to us can really make people angry, and sometimes that anger erupts into persecution. When that happens, believers become openly criticized and watched. Unreasonable demands are placed on them, and they’re forced to choose who they will obey.

Jesus warned us that following Him would get us in trouble, and He didn’t promise that He would always get us out. But He did promise He would be with us in that moment, and would speak through us. He said when we stand before our accusers He would empower us and make us witnesses for Him. And this is exactly what we see happening here with Peter and John. Basically, they’re in trouble, standing in front of Israel’s highest court, for doing what Jesus did.

A startling reality confronts us in this passage. We see two wildly different responses to the same event. On the one hand, there are hundreds, possibly over a thousand people, who repent and believe, and on the other hand, there is a much smaller group who seem to feel no inclination whatsoever to repent and believe, but instead actively work to find a way to stop others from doing so. Both groups saw the same miracle and heard the same message. Why, then, were there such different reactions? If they had only heard the preaching of a message, we might explain it by saying they doubted because they had no way of testing it. But it wasn’t just a message, it was a message confirmed by an absolutely stunning miracle, that not even those in the small group could deny. You would think that anyone confronted by such an amazing display of power would be forced to listen with an open mind. But the smaller group of people doesn’t seem affected by the miracle at all. They’re alarmed, they see the situation as a crisis needing damage control, but there’s no trace of self-doubt. So this passage provides a case-study on the inner workings of the human heart. It makes us look deep inside and ask why do some people say “yes” to God while others refuse to even see or hear His call.

When I meet an unbeliever, I need to watch and listen in order to discern what kind of unbeliever that person is. Is this someone who has simply never heard? Is this someone who has heard but didn’t understand? Is this someone who has been taught a very distorted picture of Jesus Christ? In other words, is the “Jesus” they are rejecting the real one? Or is this someone who does know the truth but has simply chosen the world instead, or is so invested in the world (riches, pleasure, power) that they are willing to silence the voice of the Holy Spirit?

Healing is an emotionally-charged topic. There are people who believe healing is for today and those who don’t. There are people who have been healed and those who haven’t. There are people whom God has used to heal others, and those who’ve tried and “failed.” There are even people who’ve walked away from God because they sought healing for a loved one, but that person died. So, by just mentioning the topic, all sorts of emotions and memories come to mind.

We’re often told a person will be saved if they pray the sinners prayer. But that’s not true. Reciting a short prayer won’t save anybody. We’re often told if we raise our hands to receive Jesus we’ll be saved. But that’s not true either. And a lot of people have been misled into thinking they’ve done what it takes. The problem is that reciting a prayer or raising my hand can be done without really understanding what God requires of me. When I pray, I may not understand what I’m saying because words mean different things to different people. I can tell God I’m a sinner without knowing what a sinner is. Or tell Him I repent without a clue of what I just said I would do. And this type of shallow, uninformed invitation to follow Christ may be one reason so many people who say they’re Christians don’t act like it. Some hearts don’t seem to have changed. A person can become religious, but not more loving, self-controlled, forgiving, honest or pure than they were before. The only difference is, now they assume they’ll go to heaven.

This is a very challenging passage. It describes people living out their faith in a way that is so different from our own experience that it leaves us confused or even suspicious. Their lifestyle was radical and we might feel the need to explain it away as an initial burst of enthusiasm which would soon be dimmed by the realities of life. I’ve even read someone who described it as a misguided attempt at communism. Almost everyone who comments on this passage assures us that we don’t have to follow in their footsteps, and, of course, they’re right. There is no law saying we have to live like that. But I think we make a terrible mistake if we simply dismiss this first expression of the church of Jesus Christ as a quaint experiment in naïve zeal. Persecution did arise almost immediately and some of what they did had to change, but some of the most disturbing parts of what we see in our forefathers and mothers not only didn’t disappear, but became vital to their survival. They deserve an honest hearing, after all. This is the church fresh from the hands of Jesus. This is what people who had talked to Him only days earlier thought He wanted. This is what they believed pleased Him. So, yes of course, it will look different today. It has to. But the deep principles they were living out ought not to change. Most have been forgotten over the past 2000 years, but maybe it’s time to remember them, and let them live again.

If Jesus is Lord, why is there still so much rebellion? On that Pentecost morning Peter announced that Jesus is now seated at the Father’s right hand, and that the Father is bringing all of His enemies into submission to Him. Yet if we look around us we see a lot of spiritual warfare. The devil is still very active. The human race seems to be dividing and hardening in its attitudes. People are either for or against Him, with fewer and fewer undecided. There are places on earth where the number of people following Him is growing rapidly, but there are also places where an antichrist spirit appears to be taking hold. In our own culture there seems to be so much defiance of God’s moral standards, so much violence, so much dishonesty, so many false religions. And if Jesus is Lord, why does He allow all of this? Why doesn’t He force people to submit? The answer is that He will some day, but not yet. Believe it or not, all of this has been prophesied and is part of His plan. Yes, God has commanded all the world to surrender to His Son, but He still allows people to disobey that command. People can still choose to submit or rebel, and as troubled as these times may seem, millions are confessing Him as Lord every year. Yet the Bible tells us that as time goes on persecution and deception will increase, and fewer and fewer will believe. A day will come, somewhere in the future, when the last person willingly bows his or her knee. At that point the harvest will be complete and the Lord will return to the earth, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:10, 11). But we’re not there yet. Even though we see this hardening taking place in our own country, many are still willing to repent and believe. So our assignment is to labor in this harvest field while it is still “day.”

It’s almost like there were two men named Peter. The one we meet in the gospels is good-hearted, but often says the wrong thing at the wrong time. Only a few weeks earlier, that one fearfully denied to a servant girl he even knew Jesus. But on this Pentecost morning we’re listening to a very different man. This one has the courage to stand in front of thousands and tell them in unmistakable terms that they are morally responsible for killing the Messiah. Neither afraid nor angry, he says to them, “…you nailed Him (to a cross) by the hand of godless men (Roman soldiers) and put Him to death…” His boldness is remarkable. Today, this one will be so effective at presenting the gospel, 3000 people will repent and be baptized. The fearful, clumsy man who often makes us chuckle when we read the gospels has been transformed into a fearless, eloquent spokesman for His Lord. What happened? What changed Peter? We want to know because we want that same boldness for ourselves. We want to be able to speak when it’s time to speak. We want to be able to pray for someone when it’s time to pray. We want the courage to go someplace and serve when we’re called to go. We don’t want fear holding us back. So let’s find out what happened to Peter, so it can happen to us too.

People don’t have to learn to be spiritual because essentially every one of us is a spirit. This is because God made us in His own image. Please notice, I’m not talking yet about people who are born-again. All human beings are spiritual, by virtue of the way God made them. People actually have to be taught not to be spiritual. In the secular western society in which we live each of us is trained to deny our spiritual tendencies from the time we are infants. We soon learn to ignore, ridicule, and even fear our spiritual capacities. This has created an odd culture, very much out of step with much of the rest of the world. Huge portions of the planet consider the spiritual dimension to be as real as the physical dimension, and they engage it daily, one way or another. But not us. Our religious history has soured us, and set us at war with God. Frankly, the most secularizing influence of all has been protestant Christianity. It laughs at the notion that a person today might hear from God. It’s filled with doubt and suspicion when confronted by a healing, a deliverance, or any other supernatural manifestation. All has become rational, psychological, scientific, deductive. It looks for a rational explanation for everything, and this has been going on, and getting worse, for hundreds of years. So, it’s not easy, even for western Christians, to hear Peter quote from the prophet Joel, and realize that we’re included in this promise. When he says, “…and they shall prophesy,” he means us!