Stand Up For Jesus.

The Pharisees

Who were they? Where did they come from? What did they believe? How did they get it wrong? The origins of the Pharisees are not easy to trace. The only thing many people to know about them is their strictness about the law. They even criticized Jesus for not keeping their law. Matt 12: 10-14, 15: 1-2, John 9:6.

Some people believe that after the exile, these people came up as a small group who looked at Scriptures with idea of interpreting it to other people. This was probably the time of Ezra 7:25. They came from the working class and tried to preserve traditional Jewish practices from the corruption of foreign ideas and political ambition. The name Pharisee means separated one. They separated themselves from the people. They were more concerned with maintaining traditions than with producing the type of character and behavior that God’s law aimed at Matt 5:20. The Pharisees lived this way until the time of  Maccabean period. When Alexander the great began to influence the whole world with the creek culture, the Pharisees tried to stop him and it was when the book of Daniel appeared, Dan 12:9-10. The Pharisees fought so hard and made Israel a power to be reckoned with in the near East. In fact you could sympathize with them at this time, around 167 B.C. the unspeakable crime was committed in the temple, it was the time Antiochus slaughtered pigs in the temple and burned the scrolls of the law and prohibited circumcision. Many Jews chose to die rather than see the defilement of the temple or break ancient covenant read Gen 17: 7-14. The local priest at that time was Mattathias. He had five sons. These people with a number of Pharisees were consumed with righteous rage at the sight of a Jew obediently offering a sacrifice on one of the altar which Antiochs had erected; slew everybody including the king’s agent. This was the time some Jews who preferred to face death, rather than break Sinai law lived Exodus 19:20. This war came to an end in 63 B.C when Pompey, the Roman general was called upon to mediate. Who were fighting? The Pharisees along with others and Jesus found one of his disciples from these fighters Luke 6:15, Simon the Zealot. They were fighting for their identity as a nation. They stood firm. They knew Messiah was coming soon. Their faith consumed them John 7:32, 50-52.

Whatever their motives, the Pharisees became a party with considerable popular influence, Josephus, a Jew historian described them as having the ability to sway the masses, even against kings or high priest. They had their dangers as I have said. Their outward show not spiritual conviction, our Lord told them Matt 23:23-26, please don’t forget what they stood for, not how they did it, they are a people worth studying. Do you stand for Jesus as a Christians now? 2 Tim 4:1-5. We are living in a time when the true gospel has become unpopular; we need men and women who can stand up for Jesus, who protect God’s kingdom. 2 Tim 3:10-12. If earthly people can depend their earthly kingdom this way. How would Christians stand up for Jesus because of the heavenly kingdom?

                                                                          

By Pastor Paul Onyango Odera. Elder at Kisumu Grace Baptist Church.                                                         

THE ZAMBIA 2012 REFORMED CONFERENCE- A RECAP

By Kennedy O Owiti¹

I had the privilege of attending this year’s Reformed Conference in Zambia’s beautiful capital, Lusaka. The theme of the conference this time was “Missions- Not Beyond Our Reach”

In this series, I intend to recap, as simply as I can, some of the lessons God was pleased to help me learn. Obviously, it is hard to put it down word for word, yet I trust that with the enabling of the spirit of God, those who read these summaries will be able to learn something of value for their own walk with God as believers in Christ.

Inculcating mission mindedness in the family- By Pastor Voddie Baucham

Introduction

It must be agreed that all christians have a part to play in the mission work of the church. This is obviously for the reason that all of the saved are priests with Christ, he being the chief high priest. Many christians are obviously aware of the great commission that Christ directed his followers to in Mathew 28:16-20 and so many christians think that the work of missions is only a New Testament phenomenon. We rarely notice missions in the Old Testament often because of:-

·         fixation on the great commission of Christ,

·         a general lack of familiarity with the Old Testament;

Pastor Baucham argued that the Dominion Mandate in Genesis 1:28 itself amounted to a mission to man to rule and subdue the world in specific manner, to multiply and generally enhance life, for God’s glory.  Later as Moses is sent to take out the Israelites out of Egypt, God uses the plagues in the battle against Pharaoh  so that men may know that there is none like God in all the earth [Exodus 9:14-16]. Indeed God’s intention is then that His name may be proclaimed in all the earth. Do you not see mission in that? All the major and minor prophets in various sections of the Old Testament also indicate that the missions of God to man were variously given with the ultimate aim of the name of God being known and therefore being glorified in all the earth.

The New Testament is replete with missions given to men to declare the glory of the Lord God. In Mathew 6:9-13; the Lord Jesus Christ teaches his disciples how to pray in what is famously referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” and there at verse 10 he says;

“your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

The foregoing means, in part, that the rulership of God, his fame and glory in heaven, where he is obeyed fully and most perfectly as the holy, majestic and most glorified God should be replicated in all the earth. Now that can only happen if God is known in all the earth! It goes without saying then that we have there, an implied mission to make God known in all the earth.

Later in Mathew 10:18, Christ tells the disciples that on his account, they “will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the gentiles”- a clear indication that Christ’s followers are expect to be in mission work by virtue of the fact of their being such followers!

A reading through various passages in the other Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline literature as well as Revelation, shows that God directs us to mission work. This is the only way that the great multitude revealed to John in Revelation 7:9 gets to be realized. There the word of God says;

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb”

Conclusion

We can say the following confidently;

·         God has always been on “mission”

·         God has always called/taught/expected his people to be on mission

·         The whole of biblical revelation is mission oriented in nature and scope

Must one have faith to be healed? - The place of Miracles Today                                by  Kennedy Owiti

Today there are many churches that preach the existence of instant healing and other miraculous signs and wonders. There are billboards that announce, every so often that a healing crusade will be held in this or that place. People are invited to bring their sick that these may be prayed for and healed. Indeed even the sick themselves are asked to attend that they may be prayed for to receive such healing.  The question one asks then is, do these healings really take place? Do miracles proclaimed in the name of Jesus still happen? And if they don’t, is it because the people being prayed for, the sick and crippled, do not have sufficient faith or at all, that they then cannot get the healing they desire?

The word of God is replete with instances of great miraculous signs and wonders right from the times of the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, the great miraculous signs and wonders that preceded the exodus are told. The burning bush (Exodus 3) and the plagues that hit Egypt (Exodus 8-10) have never been repeated elsewhere! These were miracles performed by the Almighty God Himself! The Bible records various other miracles that He did. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ also performed many miracles, signs and wonders. He healed the sick of various categories: getting the lame and crippled to walk (Luke 5:17-26), the blind to have sight (John 9:1-12), the deaf to have the ability to hear, the mute to speak, (Mark 7:31-37) the demon possessed to be free of demons (Luke 4:31-36). He walked on water (Mark 6:45-52), He fed five thousand people from just five loaves of bread and two fishes. (Mark 6:30-44) and caused the dead to rise only from their death beds? (Luke 7:11-17) Nay, from their graves too! Lazarus was a rotting corpse when the savior called him back to life (John 11:38-44).  These are just a few of the ones He did and the Bible records many more.

In Acts of the Apostles, the twelve were filled with the Holy Spirit and they themselves performed great miracles, signs and wonders (Acts 2:43) in the name of our Savior as the Spirit of God enabled them including healing the crippled beggar (Acts 3:1-10). The statement in Acts 5:12-16 clearly has the implication that the miracles, signs and wonders were performed as a means of getting the people to believe, more so as the Church of Christ was just being born. These were a people who were hearing of the gospel of grace for the first time. They were learning for the  very first time about the possibility of being right with God on account of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as opposed to being cleansed of sin on account of the offerings made by the high priests as was the custom and as had been the practice since Moses. But again the miracles were not just confined to healing the sick! The miraculous escape of Peter recorded in Acts 12 and even the earlier one recorded in Acts 5:17-26 also happened! There were recorded witnesses to these things. The people healed were often well known to the people in their various towns and villages.

Later,  we read (Hebrews 1:1-2) that the time for these miracles, visions, signs and wonders had ended and that now God only speaks to men through the Son who John explains is the very statement of the will of God (John 1:1-5), the Word of God Himself, which word has been written down to and for us in the name of a Bible. Salvation itself, which the Word of God equates with the raising of a dead person or soul back to life, is a miracle that continues to occur to this very day but all the other miracles signs and wonders no longer happen. We all live in this world; we know our neighbors and the people who live in and around our towns. Among these people are the sick, the blind the crippled, the deaf and mute, those with mental problems who for all intents and purposes are demon possessed. These people have variously been taken to the crusades where the so called faith healers have promised miraculous healings but these never come to pass. Indeed these purported miracle workers are devoid claims of any other signs and wonders except to allege the power to heal those who are sick! Why, for example, has none walked on water? Why has none walked into a morgue and in the name of the risen Christ, raised the dead back to life? How is it that we cannot find one ordinary man who from birth was blind but can now see? The healing which our Christ performed at the pool called Bethesda is remarkable. The modern equivalent to that pool is a medical ward in a modern 21st century hospital! This was a place where the sick congregated in their numbers that they may get healing. Christ went to that hospital and thereat healed a man well known to his neighbors! How come we have not had any of the so called miracle workers walk into any hospital and heal those that are sick there? Why have they not walked, driven, or flown to the northern parts of Kenya during those moments of biting famine and there preach the word of God and then miraculously feed the hundreds there with a few loaves of bread and fishes?

It is precisely because the time for miracles, signs and wonders is no more! We have the Word! We have the Son. We must believe only the Son that we may be saved.  We must not allow ourselves to be cheated that any other miracles other that the great miracle of a God willing to and indeed dying for us, will ever happen. What other miracle do we need? Surely none! For even the angles of God are baffled at this miraculous and wonderful plan of God,  where the person who has been wronged is the one who gives up himself as an atonement for the sins of the wrong doer!

No! The time for miracle, signs and wonders is over. And let no one say to you, after a failed attempt at healing you miraculously, that it is because you have little or no faith and so you have not received your miracle! For this is often the fallback reason after failure! Why, when Jesus fed the five thousand He did not first require that they exhibit any specific amount of faith! When he turned water into wine he did not ask the host to have any specific type of faith. It is His mother who told the people there to do as they were told but have we not also been told, by the scripture, the Word of God, the Son, what to do? Yes, we have been advised to have faith and to pray.  We have been told to call our pastors and elders to pray for and with us when we are sick (James 5:13-16) and that such prayers, if offered in faith, will make the sick person well.

Brethren let us all then have faith in the Word, the Son, and our Christ through whom our God now speaks to us. Let us heed his voice and be obedient to Him. In this I do not limit the power of God to do anything, even miraculous, in our midst. Yet we must, as people get wiser through the reading of God’s word and the clear preaching thereof not be led astray or be discouraged that we are not of sufficient faith as no miracles are happening among us.

Kennedy Owiti fellowships at Grace Baptist Church-Kisumu

(GBC.