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Acts 8:4-8
Lord, One More Time!
/Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there.
When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said.
With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed.
So there was great joy in that city/.
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o you long for revival?
Have you any idea what a revival would mean to your community?
To your church?
To yourself?
I rather suspect that if we truly understood what a revival entailed we would pray, “Lord, whatever you do, do not send revival!” Revival demands more than we could imagine.
I am the first to acknowledge that there are rich benefits to revival, but as one who has witnessed that divine movement, I am aware of the awesome cost of revival.
An old holiness preacher journeyed to London.
There in the great city he came upon a statue of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth.
The old preacher stood before the statue briefly, looking up and contemplating the power of Booth’s service.
He thought of the resistance to the Salvationists among the established churches.
Booth and his followers were turned out of the Methodist churches, refused a hearing within the Anglican churches and despised by almost all other churches.
The crime of these early Salvationists was that they used unorthodox methods to gather the curious from among the rowdy inhabitants of the streets of the great cities of the world.
They would beat drums and clang cymbals and blow trumpets to gather a crowd.
They would run through the streets shouting at the top of their lungs until people would follow them just to see what was happening.
They reached out to the drunkards and the prostitutes and the filthiest denizens of society.
For this crime of compassion, they were disenfranchised by the churches of their day.
Nevertheless, Booth refused to turn aside from his calling to care deeply for fallen and hurting humanity.
With his eyes misting over, the old holiness warrior fell to his knees and bowing his head, he cried out, “Oh, Lord! Do it again!
One more time!”
As I read the account of the early days when the first church had been scattered, I realise that they were a powerful people.
There is no comparison with the churches of this day, I fear.
The power of the apostolic church came as result of their weakness in society and not because of their numbers.
Scattered by powerful enemies who threatened their continued existence, the early saints could not be silenced.
As embers from a small campfire scattered before the wind, they began a conflagration which would not be contained.
Dry tinder exposed to such glowing embers can ignite a great forest fire.
Just so, a small movement of a few people driven by desperation to rely on God and His strength will ignite a great revival movement.
Lord, do it again.
A Powerless People Must Depend Upon an Unseen God — It will be valuable to review the verses preceding our text.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.
But Saul began to destroy the church.
Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison [*Acts** 8:1b-3*].
What happened?
Stephen had preached the message of life, winning some to the Faith.
When Paul writes the Christians in Rome, he greets by name a large number of fellow believers as he concludes the letter.
Among those greeted is a man named Herodion, whom Paul identifies as his relative [*Romans** 16:11a*].
Others identified as relatives are Andronicus and Junias, who also shared imprisonment with the Apostle [*Romans 16:7*].
Paul had relatives who were in the Faith, apparently before him.
Let me attempt to fill in the gaps.
Perhaps we can account for the persecution.
*Acts 6:8-10* tells of the opposition which arose against Stephen’s preaching.
Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.
Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia.
These men began to argue with Stephen, but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke.
His preaching was especially powerful in persuading some who were affiliated with the Synagogue of the Freedmen.
The membership of this particular synagogue was composed primarily of Jews from Cilicia.
Saul was from Tarsus, a city in Cilicia.
I suggest that among those converted to the Christian Faith were Jews named Herodion, Andronicus and Junias—each identified as relatives of a brilliant young rabbi named Saul from Tarsus.
If this speculation is correct, and I do admit that it is speculation, it will account for the rage exhibited as that young rabbi attacked the Faith.
Why else would Saul feel compelled to participate in the trial of Stephen?
Why would he feel it necessary to follow through by hailing men and women into court and dragging them into prison?
I suggest that Saul was infuriated, enraged, out of control.
He landed with both feet in the midst of the church, scattering those hapless saints throughout the Empire.
Notice, especially, that all except the apostles were scattered [*Acts** 8:1b*].
Notice further, that those who had been scattered preached the Word wherever they went [*Acts 8:4*].
The leadership of the Apostles was nullified.
If anything would be accomplished, it would be through the disoriented and frightened people.
Where do you turn when your world is turned upside down?
To whom do you look when all comes crashing in?
I suppose that one of the darkest periods Lynda and I have ever faced was when we were notified that our son had been arrested and charged with murder.
We were fearful and uncertain what to do.
Lynda had been phoned literally minutes before she was to leave for church.
She phoned me less than ten minutes before I was to preach.
I remember quite clearly that I dropped my head and wept.
I needed a pastor.
When your world comes crashing in, the pastor will be there.
Who is your pastor’s pastor?
I had no power and the congregation was waiting.
I prayed and surrendered myself to the unseen God.
That morning, though my heart was torn to pieces, I preached with great freedom and souls were brought to Christ.
That is God and that is His grace.
When your world crashes and when there is nowhere to turn, the unseen God will reveal His power and enable you to accomplish deeds you might otherwise have thought to be impossible.
In the *eleventh chapter of Hebrews*—*the Faith chapter*—is one verse which has often sustained me in crisis.
By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible [*Hebrews 11:27*].
Isn’t that one of the most astonishing verses?
Moses persevered because he saw the unseen God.
It is as though God is saying that on occasion, when we are weakest… when we are unable to continue… when we think all is finished for us… God draws back the curtain and reveals Himself to us.
We see Him and we discover His power.
Perhaps the reason we witness so little of Christ’s power in our lives is that we are unconscious of our need for that power.
We contemporary Christians have permitted ourselves to become convinced that we are sufficient in ourselves for all things.
Consequently, we seek converts to ourselves—our ideas and our concepts and our ease.
The evidence that this is true is seen in the fact that we are more impressed by mutual tolerance than we are impressed by constructive conflict.
It is through being challenged that we discover the sufficiency of the truth we have received.
It is as we stand with Christ that we discover that He is sufficient to answer His critics.
Nevertheless, we imagine that if the world agrees with us and does not bother us, then we are honouring God.
It is only because we have accomplished nothing of consequence that the world leaves us alone.
An old southern adage states, *If you want no trouble, don’t do anything, don’t say anything, don’t be anything*.
No one beats a dead horse.
If, on the other hand, we are powerless, we are compelled to rely on the unseen God.
May I say categorically that I hear little of desperation in our voices when we pray.
I think of what may have been Peter’s most anguished prayer—and what may have been his most powerful prayer.
The disciples were rowing against the wind and making no headway when they witnessed Jesus walking on the water toward them.
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