How Truth is Received by Power ...

It is perhaps our finest wish that once truth has been spoken to power, that power will be moved, perhaps transformed, and begin to pursue another course.  We are taught from a very young age that truth will win out in the end.  And so when we dare to carry the banner of truth into the world we face, we do so carrying hope that it will be received in the spirit of Love in which it is offered.  Not to condemn, but to point the way to the open doors of salvation and reformation that Jesus longs to offer us all.  But alas it is no small thing to maintain that hope, when time after time, power demonstrates it has no interest in truth or love, only in the maintaining of power.  And to that end power will deny what it should otherwise plainly see, or what it knows in its heart to be true, all for the sake of never losing a grasp on power.  If only this were a secular phenomenon never to be seen within the doors of the church.  But as power was never meant to be ours, when power is perceived within church walls, it behaves no differently.  Power becomes an infectious cancer, a weight to doom the souls who attempt to carry it, a sickness that perverts the thinking and transform the humble into the proud, and blind, and naked.

This is nothing new.  It is prologue.  The leadership of the one true church of God was once so caught up in it, that a new church of God had to be formed.  The new one, not so proud, not at all consumed with power, only with the transforming love that Jesus offers us all so freely.  Imagine that; the singular true church of God, who comes to a place to discard that God behind the church.  The first church was not discarded “by” God, it chose rather to walk away from God, than to embrace the name of Jesus Christ.  And still, it was not left, with no chance to repent, to change its mind, to embrace what was so clear to see with anyone who had eyes to see, or ears to hear.  Peter and John had healed a man stricken for more than 40 years that nearly everyone in Jerusalem had met or seen begging in front of the temple gates.  When the news spread, the people responded by praising God.  It becomes very hard for church leaders to claim that praising and worshipping Adonai is a bad thing.  Harder still to wish further misery on a man who was now lifting his voice in that same praise of Adonai and of Jesus the son of God.

But the temple leaders had no inclination to change now.  Power had heard the truth, and was determined to deny it still.  Luke picks up the account in his book of Acts in the fourth chapter starting in verse 13 saying … “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. [verse 14] And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. [verse 15] But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,”  The first thing an assembly of academics and well educated men steeped in power notice, is that both Peter and John are nothing of the kind.  They are poor, unlearned, uneducated, and common folks.  Nobody of that ilk has ever dared to speak so in any kind of gathering of the elite of the nation and the church.  Common folks take direction, they do not offer it.  Being with Jesus has so transformed these common men, that they have become the most effective of evangelists.  Their words are not their own, but instead powered by the Holy Spirit within them.  As much as the Pharisees and Sadducees want to resist these words, it is like trying to resist the most powerful of all magnets.

Then there is the matter of the healed man, who continues to bellow praises to Adonai and to Jesus His Son.  The people all know about it.  The leaders are unable to deny it.  So they step outside to try to figure out what to do.  Luke continues in verse 16 saying … “Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. [verse 17] But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. [verse 18] And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.”  Normally, if you told a parishioner of the faith how to speak or what to say or not say regarding any tenant of the Torah, that parishioner would be fully compliant and respectful of the council.  But neither Peter or John were normal.  They had been with Jesus.  And now they were filled with Holy Ghost which never leaves a person just normal.  Those leaders could have threatened them all day and night with all manner of tortures and death.  It was like water off a duck’s back.  Someone else was running them.  Someone else was speaking through them.  And that is the point.  It is not up to you to “become” something to be used by God.  It is only up to you if you will let God use you when it is time to do so.  How your audience responds is not a reflection on you.  The appeal for salvation, for repentance, is the gift of God to your audience.

Luke continues in verse 19 saying … “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. [verse 20] For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. [verse 21] So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done. [verse 22] For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”  It becomes very hard to punish an entire city for praising God at the miracle His love sought to perform.  And Peter and John were only saying what they themselves had seen and heard, and calling on the only name by which salvation was offered.  The leadership hated all of this.  They railed against it.  Power did what power does, it threatens the very lives of those who would oppose it.  But when you understand where the value of life itself originates, it is hard to fear the death this world will surely one day bring to us all.  The length of our days is hardly worth an absence of God for even one of them.

Is it any wonder the Lord values our humility so highly?  When we see our state of affairs and recognize our need is so great, we realize how badly we need a Savior.  Pride and power work to counteract all of that.  Having achieved power (no matter the context) we become certain of ourselves, and see no need.  We push away that still small voice in favor of the loud bellowing one in our own heads.  We start telling others what they need to do.  After all, “we” are the ones who achieved power.  Just as in that church leadership meeting of old, we blind ourselves to Truth, in favor of our own ideas.  Our certainty robs us of humility.  We may ask to be led by God, as I am sure they did as well.  But the words are useless if our ideas are so grounded in the stone of our hearts that we have no intention to ever let them sink in and affect us.  Rather “asking God to lead” becomes a tradition we speak like saying “bless you” after a sneeze.  Nobody really knows why, and nobody really means it, it is just a tradition we speak at a rote response.  Asking God to lead for real, requires us to shut up and listen, not go right on speaking when God has not had the slightest chance to respond let alone the time and opportunity to speak through us.

Peter was a common man.  He was full of faults, weaknesses, bad habits.  He would not have ever deserved a place in the halls of the church leadership of his day.  Peter did not need to be perfect to serve.  He just needed to be willing.  He was.  Are you?  Are you willing to silence the ideas floating around in your head, and give God the time and space to speak through you, to the audience He picks, at the time He decides the need is now?  It doesn’t matter what it looks like to us.  It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to us.  It only matters if we decide to say yes, turn over control to the Holy Spirit, and become the vessel of His love to others.  If there is anything I have learned about me, it is that what I want, or what I think, is seldom aligned with what and how He thinks.  So perhaps better He runs my show for me.  And perhaps better I just give Him the keys and sit back and watch.