Grace Chapel Bible Ministries

Worship Call 1179 Wisdom and Spirit in the face of persecution - 2024/11/12

As the world grows more hostile against the Christian, we must be ready to give an answer for the hope that is found in us. If that is possible we must have not only the knowledge of God's word but the given wisdom to make the right application of the truth.

Duration:: 34m
Broadcast on:: 12 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

(soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) Welcome to Worship Call with Bible teacher Buzz Lullbeck. Buzz is the pastor of Grace Chapel Bible Ministries located in Duncan, South Carolina. This ministry is dedicated to the verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word and discipleship programs aimed at strengthening the faith of God's people. Now, here's today's message. From George Whitten of WorthyNews.com, friends, are you at peace? Colossians 3.15. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you were called in one body and be thankful. We just concluded a truly historical week. The U.S. presidential elections have sparked a significant global shift. Following President Elect Trump's victory, rumors of peace talks have surfaced. With the Huches and Yemen, exploring peace in Hamas and Hezbollah, contemplating the possibility of a ceasefire. Conversations have emerged between President Elect Trump and Zelensky of Ukraine and Putin Russia. That Putin of Russia, that the war in Ukraine may become to an end in this spirit of seeking peace, it reminded me of a story. Back in the third century, Separion, the British of the Bishop of Carthage, wrote to his friend, Donatos. It's a bad world, Donatos, an incredibly bad world, but I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy, which is a thousand times better than any pressure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatos are Christians, and I am one of them. This is a kind of peace that we are supposed to experience as believers. The kind of shalom that people notice, especially when we display it through our troubles. The kind of peace we can attain when we're despised, when we're persecuted, when everything is chaotic around us. Friends, yeah, it's a bad world, an incredibly bad world, but we have victory in our Lord. That's determined to trust God for the victory in a way we haven't been, we haven't before. For before us is a great opportunity if we would simply seize it. Your family and the Lord with much agape love, George, Bhakrafka, Obadiah, and Elena, and this is another fine day in the Lord. Father, I'd have to thank you for the opportunity this morning to fellowship in your Word, and we pray Heavenly Father, God, Holy Spirit, will open our hearts to our study and acts, and these things we pray in Christ's name. Amen. And I should say that this is the third day of the week, and God's created order, the 12th day of the 11th month, 2024th year of our Lord. And again, it's another fine day in the Lord. (coughing) Excuse me. I should have shot off. No, I'm good. I've got some coffee right there. But good morning to y'all. Good morning, Bhakrafka. Love having you here. So this was, I read this yesterday from George Whitten's Worthy News. I do recommend it, and it's, I think it was very apropos to our study because there's a certain piece that, as we're looking at Stephen, Stephen's going to be our first recorded martyr, and others will be as well. We are in Acts 6, 10, says, but they were unable to cope. First, they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit which he was speaking. This is Stephen. He's confronted with those that are, that they have animosity against the two things, the wisdom, and the spirit back brought up yesterday after yesterday, two words that I overlooked. And that pretty much brings us back to, rather than going on, I want to hit those two words. And there's some meat and potatoes that I want to, some more ground that I wanted to cultivate in this. First of all, the day is the opposition party. And this passages, bring that up there. The day here is the opposition party. They're the ones that, that, the opposition to wisdom, that wisdom which comes down from heaven and is communicated to, to one of God's own. These were those from the synagogue of, of Freedman. And this Freedman here, the, the synagogue of Freedman may be described even in Revelation 2 9. I, I mentioned this yesterday and we were concerning the church's murder. And it says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich and blaspheme by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you in prison. And the wisdom of Stephen offended, offended them as the word of God only defends those who are sensitive, the worldly sensitive. There, when we talk about Christianity, they say, they talk about the offense that Christianity brings to them. You need to keep your Bible to yourself. You need to, you need to, you need to be sensitive to the unbelieving world because they are uncomfortable. And I've heard preacher Vody Valkham say one time, I do not want the unbeliever to be comfortable around me. I don't want that. I don't want to, and we say, well, that's, that seems, it seems like we're going out to be a fence. No, we're not being a fence. If they're uncomfortable, it is, it is, it is an opportunity to say, look, why am I uncomfortable? Why, why should the unbeliever be comfortable around us? If an unbeliever is comfortable around us, it must be because we're suppressing the spirit and the wisdom that we should be expressing. Our, our, our lampstand is, the lampstand is covered up. There's nothing to offend. If, if your life, I'll leave it as a point of doctrine here. If your life is not offensive to an unbelieving world, we need to sit down and take a look at our hearts. If we never have opposition in our life, if, if our Facebook is exploding with friends and, and we, you know, sometimes I even worry about myself, you know, I live in a time that, you know, I, I have very few enemies, but we could say we have very few enemies. And sometimes I don't worry a little bit about that. Um, you know, am I, am I, am I truly, uh, expressing the light that really offends the, the dark world? We do live in the Bible belt, but I also know that kind of seems like the Lord saying, well, hold on, um, hold on, you know, that time is coming. But, okay, well, they couldn't stand these, these men could not stand, be right in the presence, the very presence of Stephen offended these men. And this word for offend is, let me see, bring my, bring my passage back up. Let's see the synagogue of Satan. Bring it back. Try something new here. Okay, let's, let's get out of there. Back to the full screen, and we'll go back to our passage. There we go. Okay, but they were unable to cope. And this word cope here, I'm just going to leave it there. This word cope here is, let me see if I give this a, anesthetist, damey, anesthetist, damey. I didn't, don't think I did too bad on that one. To resist by actually opposing pressure or power, to resist, they couldn't stand for it. Aesthetist, damey is usually a stand to take a stand. And they were not able to stand for it. And we, we talked about it yesterday. There are times when you're going to stand before, to, before the believers, or unbelievers, people of this world, and they're going to attack your faith. And they're going to look to discredit you. And that's normally what they do. And again, I see this, that there's an audience around. That there are people watching this confrontation. And these, these men are not going, they're standing opposed to it. And it, it doesn't matter what Stephen is going to say. There's going to be, they're, they're not going to receive it. But how about those people around there? And so the more that they press, that there are two things that Stephen's going to be standing upon, not upon his own intellect, not upon his own personality. Neither one of those are going to count in the game, folks. Neither one is not, it's not Stephen that's under the attack. It's the word of God. And the test, the witness isn't going to be how well Stephen can stand up to this, but it's a testimony to God's spirit and God's wisdom. So first of all, it's the, they could not stand against the wisdom of Stephen. And the, the word is Sophia. And Sophia is the capacity to understand. As a result to act wisely, to be pruned to wisdom. A person can, a person can have a whole lot of knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. A person can have a whole lot of doctrine. They can, they can have a reservoir of all kinds of doctrine. And there are those people that can, that, that will go, that, they have such a capacity to, to take in facts. That they could tell you Bible verse and, and, and chapter and Bible verse and just lay it out. But the funny thing is that their lives do not reflect the word of God. It doesn't reflect the knowledge that they have. It doesn't seem to be doing anything. Why? Because they have knowledge and not wisdom. You see, wisdom is the proper use of knowledge. It's the proper use of knowledge. And while we can gain from our own intellect, and learn doctrines and knowledge and all this good stuff, it doesn't, it doesn't do nothing like Verna McGee says until it becomes shoe leather. Our pastor, Roman Up, talked about the, the, uh, gnosis and epi gnosis. And, and wisdom is like the epi gnosis. It's the, it's the usable doctrine with, with, in our hearts. So Stephen had, Stephen not only had the knowledge, but he had the wisdom that goes with it. He's, he can properly apply the, the wisdom. And, um, and what a great thing that is when, when you do have people. And sometimes not everyone who comes ask you with some type of a level of animosity. And, and all that, uh, they're really just standing upon what they've always learned. They're traditions or they're, they're denominations. And if you're able to give in a gentle answer, as it says that, uh, be ready to give an answer for the hope that's found in you, but with gentleness and with reverence. That is, you're not there to debate. You're not there to pick a fight. But you're there to answer the questions. If indeed the, the, um, to someone who's asking legitimate questions. You don't always have to ask, you don't always have to defend at all, either. You can, Jesus didn't answer all his, all the questions either. When you did, when your spirit detects that there is the great animosity and, um, you can, you can certainly say, I'm not going to answer your question. And you can walk away. Wisdom, again, is the right application of knowledge. It is one thing to have the capacity to remember the facts. But it's the other thing that those facts will take hold of your heart. And it changed the heart. And, um, this is wisdom. And while we may have, and while we may be all that smart with all these knowledge, it is, once again, it's going to be the wisdom that saves the day. And wisdom, wisdom come from us. Uh, we find in James 1 5, and James 1 5 says that, but if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But one must ask in faith without any doubting. So such, such a man as these, uh, as these who oppose the doctrine stands upon their own wisdom. The world will, who's really defending, who's really trying to defend. And the only way that, that the world can defend their, their own wisdom, their pseudo-intellectuality, you might say. And the only way they can stand for it is if they tear down the wisdom and the, and the, and discredit the doctrine within you, within the wisdom. And that's what they're trying to do, they're trying to tear down truth. And they will stand upon their own, own faith, Romans 1 22. Says that professing to be wise, they become fools. And, um, so first of all, it is the, it is the, um, the wisdom that offends them. It's the truth. Truth, truth always offends the, the, um, the world around us, those that are trying to suppress the truth with their own arrogance. Truth, truth is light. Wisdom is light. It exposes stupidity. It exposes the, it, um, it exposes those that are, um, idiots, you might say. I'm being, I'm being hard here, but so be it. So the second thing, so first of all, what affinity these, these ones who opposed Stephen was the, was the, was the wisdom. And then there is the spirit, knows who have the spirit and are molded and shaped by the spirit. There's two things within our lives that changes our lives. That brings us, they bring us holy before God. Holiness is not the, the, um, being, uh, what do you call it? Um, piety is a high level of piety. But, um, but holiness is to be set up, it means more to be set apart from the world. Um, to, to, uh, between our, our doctrinal intake under the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit, our lives have become to conform to something that's not of this world. We are in this world, but not of this world. And it's doctrine and wisdom that changes our lives and people see the change within our lives. And they may not always know what the, and what the, um, why it is. But to some, it will be offensive. We are, we become aliens of this world. You're not of this world. You're not a part of us anymore. The fact is, I think, uh, for, for any number of us, we may have been popular in, in a, in a sense. And we may have many friends of growing up and, um, our good time rock and roller friends and what have you. Um, but really it's true this as we begin to grow spiritually apart from them. If they aren't on the same road, even religious friends, we're going to find that the, um, that our, um, we're going to have less friends. Maybe I say less, I would should say less associations. Uh, those less that we associate with. Um, because there's going to be less and less that, um, our journey is not their journey. We're on a different journey than they, if I can make, am I making clear? Okay. All right. All right. Um, so those who have the spirit are molded by and shaped by the spirit are automatically, um, offensive to a hostile world. John 1 5. The light shines in darkness. The, um, light shine in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. There is, um, and then I don't know why I put John 1 6 on there, but, um, I'll just leave it there. The light is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the light is now in one who possesses the spirit. And, um, there will be people who hate you. There are people who, it is a hatred that you don't understand. There will be, and if it's not true, you'll see it in somebody else. You'll see the hatred directed to somebody who is just a gentle spirit. Someone who, who has never offended anybody. And we've seen this and they would be hated to the core and you ask yourself why? You can't understand it. This person is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person that you know and yet they have enemies. And you don't understand it. So the only way to understand it is to go back to the Bible. To remember what the Bible says about this situation. And, um, to, to the place where Jesus says, "Don't worry if the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you." And if, if the Jesus, if the spirit is in you, the spirit is in you, you're going to reflect the very thing that the world hates. And, and certainly liberal, certainly this liberal world will talk about peace, love and happiness. That we should all get along and, and love one another and they will on that. But the doctrine of kindness, you know, be kind and this, uh, it's all pseudo. It's all a lie. It's off the side. Because when true, because when that, that love, that peace and that happiness is this, it comes from the spirit of, of Christ that's within us. Then you can find how much this world really, um, gravitates to love, peace, love and happiness. So again, you know, sometimes I ask myself, "Am I doing something wrong?" It seems to, you know, I seem to think that the Lord is telling me simply to stand by. So, um, so they couldn't resist against the, and the nature, I would just say the nature. It wasn't Stephen that was winning a debate. It wasn't that at all. It was that Stephen stood his ground in, in light of persecution, in the light of animosity. He was given good answers. Others around were saying, "Wow, you know, good answer." Um, and the very spirit and the very wisdom of Stephen just made these, those who were against it, made their heads explode. They hated Stephen, but Stephen didn't return the hatred or the evil. As the temple, the temple, the temple flared, Stephen may have recounted the words of Jesus. Um, and John 15, 18, because when you come into a situation like this, this is what you've got to do. Even in the face of an animosity, the animosity, you need to be praying. Watch out for the knee jerks. Watch out for, and let your mind be thinking through the situation here. Um, because, um, you're going to be tempted to react to them, rather than responding to the Word of God. Here it was, as Stephen, was responding to the Word of God. If the, again, here's the passage we alluded to earlier, and Jesus said, "If the world hates you, you know that it hates me before it hated you. If you were of the world, and the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this world hates you." Remember, the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than its master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also, but all these things, they will do to you for my name's sake, because they do not know the one who sent me. Yeah, we'll go on. He who hates me hates the Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sinned, but now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. So, we must be equipped with the Word of God. And such a thing here. This is the battle. This is the battle ground. This is what stands before us. And we must be equipped with the Word of the Lord going into the conflict if we ourselves are to give a good testimony. And we must go out every day with our lawns girded up, ready for action, with our armor on, ready to give a good answer. And we will, if today we take advantage of the assets that the Lord has placed before us, those assets that, those assets, and the major assets is the Word of God under the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit. We have the Spirit. We have the Word of God. And every day we must direct our and take good use of our time. So, we should be continually walking in spirit and taking in the Word of God. So, that when we walk onto the field and the face of the lions, when we come to a place where we are being persecuted, we need to already be equipped with it. Because the better we are equipped with spirit and the better we are equipped with God's Word, the better we are able to, because if we are continually walking in that and keeping our situational awareness, we are going to be ready for the hostility in this world. We are going to be like Stephen. We are going to be ready to give an answer. And it won't be reactive, but it will be responsive to who and what we are in the spirit and who and what we are in walking in God's Word. And Acts 6, 11, 3, 12. Then they secretly induced Ben to say, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God." And they steered up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the council. It's nothing new under his son, folks, nothing new under his son. Some of the biggest liars that I have discovered, that we have discovered, sits right in our local churches. And these are the wolves. And they have, especially in a church that's teaching the Word of God. Watch it. And their church is a Bible teaching church and they love the Word of God and people are growing, watch it. Because there are wolves in there and they will seek to undermine and rid the church of its pastor. And it's to undermine the authority of the pastor or undermine the authority of one who's teaching the Word of God in there, maybe a Sunday school teacher or whatever. And here's the pastor who's doing his duty. He's teaching the Word of God. People are growing and there's going to be those that are the liars and they're going to start. And with their lies they're going to attack the truth. James 3.5 says this. So also the tongue is a small part of the body and yet it boasts some great things. See how great a force is set a flame by a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among the members as that which defiles the entire body and sets the fire of the course of our lives and is set a fire by hell. The entire body can be an individual, it can be the church itself. And so these people steered up and so these people steered up the other people to go against them. And again going back to church I've seen where one person, whether a man or a woman, seeking to attack the pastor will do it with their tongue. Outright attack people will protect their pastor. Outright attack they will defend their pastor. But what happens is these men or these women will go and go around the corner and they'll be talking. They'll be sowing seeds of dissension. And that is more dangerous in an outright attack and this is what they were doing to Stephen here. Coming back to our passage. And they steered up the people, the elders and the scribes and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the council. They put forward false witnesses who said this man increasingly speaks against the holy place in the law. For we have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and after the customs which Moses handed down. Again I'll go back to what I said earlier. At this point Stephen is sitting there listening to this. This is a hard thing, injustices are a hard thing to overcome when you're hearing these lies about you. And you've done nothing to deserve any of these lies and they're not related to you. That's a hard thing. Right then we need to be praying. Right then we need to be because the important thing is listen it's not about your credibility. It's not about you. It's not about you now if you wrestle with the pigs and when you're reacting to the situation that's what you're doing. You're wrestling with the pig. And when you're wrestling with the pig in the mud after a while you both get dirty. And you find out that the pig likes it. But when you're responding to the Word of God now you're on a higher plane. Because it's not you that's being attacked. It's the Word of God being attacked and this is the situation with Stephen. He knows the situation. He will stand before them and rather than react to the situation he will respond by going back to the Word of God. Let's close it out. Father in heaven thank you for this passage. Thank you for Stephen. Thank you for his witness. Certainly I look forward to meeting Stephen one day in heaven when we stand there in glory. And I pray Heavenly Father that in that we gird up our loins. That we certainly do have we might have a breath of breath of fresh air. We're having a good government. A good government looks like a lot of positive things are happening within the world. But let us not let our guard down. During the time of peace let us train for war and be ready. Pray these things in Christ's name amen. All right it's another fine day. Now Lord keep your armor on and keep fighting a good fight of faith. Lord the will and spirit guide and raptor pending. We will be back here this evening for our continuous study and revelation. We'll see you then. Yes you can hear this message again as well as previous lessons. And get notes by visiting us online at www.gchapel.org. . . [BLANK_AUDIO]