The Gentile Pentecost (Acts 8-15)Sample

‘On that day a great persecution broke out against the church and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria’ (Acts 8:2).

Before God does a great work he gets His key people ready.

We see exactly this happening in Acts chapters 8 and 9.

The church in Jerusalem was an exceptional, model church. For two thousand years Christians everywhere have loved Acts 2-7 and have been inspired, motivated and encouraged by what they have read there. But God was looking for something even better!

First, He used the deacon Philip to take the gospel to the Samaritans. He then demonstrated through the conversion of a prominent witch that the gospel is greater and more powerful than witchcraft.

And then through the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch the gospel was taken to the far limits of the then known world.

Look at what the Spirit is doing:

1) Even in the aftermath and shock - the PTSD - of the Jerusalem persecution the Lord is demonstrating that nothing is able to prevent the gospel being taken to the ends of the earth – in direct fulfillment of His statement in Acts 1:8 ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’.

2) The Holy Spirit starts using the non-apostles – people like Philip – people like you and me; ‘Everyone gets to play’. As you read this there are people who love Jesus throughout the nations of the world who are, like Philip, telling others about the ‘lamb led like a sheep to the slaughter’(Acts 8:32).

3) The Spirit is always working to take the mission of God forward to all humanity. In the mess and carnage of the persecution He gets His people ready for the next great initiative. So we can be absolutely sure that in our day God is preparing His people for what He will do in the future. Some things are being stripped back, it is like the darkness of the tomb, some things that worked well in the past are being allowed to die. For other things it is the darkness and pressure of the womb, where hidden new life grows in preparation for birth.