An Army Bold

But the fact of the matter is that the the state of affairs in our world is such that unless we start to view the news through our Bibles rather than viewing our Bibles through the news, we're going to find ourselves in trouble. Start word before world. Word before world. You can leave all the news until you get your perspective. How do you get your perspective in acknowledging who God is? The God who continues to speak. [00:24:57]

We need to understand the fact that when you read Psalm 2 and it says that God laughs from the heavens. That is just simply the inevitable derisive response of the vastness of God to the futility of little princes and kings and peeons and presidents as if they somehow another are going to take care of affairs. But don't overstate it because the same God who's described as laughing in Psalm two is the God who gave his only son because he loved the world so much so that people believing in his son would not perish but would have everlasting life. [00:25:39]

It would have been very very easy for them when they uh got Peter and John back in to start to try and unpack why this happened and how they could ever prevent it happening again or what have we done that we've allowed or whatever it might have been. But they don't do any of that apparently. They just look up. They they know that the Lord God omnipotent reigns. It doesn't always seem so, but it is so. [00:18:14]

The challenge that is before us is learning how to live as a Christian in a society that doesn't like what we believe. learning to live as a Christian. Not learning to live as a political person, but to live as a Christian. How are we going to live as Christians in a broken world unless we can proclaim the one who deals with the brokenness? That the real brokenness is between a holy God and sinful man. The broken down relationships are an evidence of that ultimate brokenness. [00:29:49]

Spurgeon himself had people praying always in what he referred to as his boiler room. There was a big boiler that generated all that was necessary in the Metropolitan Tabernacle. But what he was referring to was the prayers of his people. I'm sure you don't have a boiler room here, but there's you should all be signed up for the for the uh the Trails boiler room group. And what I mean by that is they all prayed while Spurgeon preached. [00:16:47]

And it is that very characteristic of boldness that Luke is careful to record for us here in relationship to what Peter and John are both doing and saying. They're going to be brought before this council and they're going to have to give an answer for the hope they profess. And the way in which they do it is not only an historical record of fact, but it is in many ways a pointer to the church in every generation as to how we communicate that gospel. [00:03:57]

What an immense privilege at this point in history here in broken down nations, broken down families, broken down communities to be able to go out and in a combination of kindness and boldness, not brashness. We got enough brash. I'm not going to say any more than that. But we got enough brash that is overbearing, selfish, aggravational, animosity, disruptive. Boldness is not brash. Brash is admonition. Boldness is mission. [00:31:50]

Do you know how important it is to pray not only before your pastor as he prays, before your pastor as he preaches and after the preaching has ended. That was what they did. That was their response. communal. If you take the average church, evangelical church calendar as I roam this country, the perhaps the most obvious and glaring omission in the calendar of events is any communal gathering for prayer. [00:17:13]

metaphors of the church which in earlier generations and perhaps understandably so was very much at the forefront of things is the metaphor of an army that the people of God understood that according to the Westminster confession of faith we are involved in a continual and irreconcilable war. Um Paul is urging Timothy to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He writes what ends up being virtually a whole chapter at the end of Ephesians concerning the importance of putting on the armor of God. [00:04:07]

It seems to me there's a certain reticence in the present climate that almost tends to silence the church because they we are afraid of appearing to be something that we're not. In 1882, the Church of England began an evangelical thrust into England under the oposes of a newly founded organization called the Church Army. An army of people who were going to go out into the streets of England and proclaim the good news. [00:04:46]

So they said the Holy Spirit was at work through the mouth of David, King David to give us the second Psalm. Why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? So they're basically saying, why would we be surprised by the opposition? Why would they be surprised then and why would we at this point in the 21st century be surprised now? [00:23:34]

And at the very heart of our prayers, as we think about our prayers for our children or for our grandchildren or our office workers or our future or our fears or our failures or our great tragedies in life, we have to come and say you are sovereign Lord. That's where I start from. That's where we have to start from. [00:18:39]

JS Stewart on that occasion made a similar comment. He referred to the fact that now at that point in the 20th century, it wasn't uncommon to encounter what he referred to as a proclamation that was harmlessly vague, hopelessly accommodating. a kind of Christianity that will accomplish nothing nothing anywhere any time except to undermine the gospel itself. [00:06:36]

Uh Paul says I am not ashamed of the gospel. He then writes to Timothy and he says to him, "And I don't want you to be ashamed of the gospel. Don't be timid about things. You haven't been given the spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of self-control. Therefore, do not be do not be ashamed." [00:02:42]

I love with my grandchildren at the tiniest level just to make this point to them again and again because they're growing up in a world that doesn't believe there is a personal creator and that's why him writers for me have always been so vitally important including the contemporary present and Ceil Francis Alexander who was the wife of the archbishop of Londereerry Northern Ireland wrote hymns expressly to teach truth to children. [00:21:40]