Radio Antioch

   This teaching is part 4 of Radio Antioch Podcast Episode 10.
Click above to watch a short video of this teaching. The full
video of Podcast 10 is available Here.

   Acts 8:1-4   And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. [2] Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. [3] But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. [4] Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

    Saul, of course, is a Hebrew name, and this same man later became known in scripture as Paul. Anytime you see a name change in scripture, there has been a spiritual transformation. But on this day, he was bent upon the destruction of the believers in Christ.

     I believe that this persecution was demonically driven. One reason that I believe this is the fact that Paul arrested women as well as men. In the culture of that day, the women were frequently treated as second class citizens. It would be unheard of in that day for them to be arrested for something like this, as they were not considered dangerous. But the women in the early church were often fasting and praying, and had a significant impact upon the spiritual realm,
“praying in” the moves of the spirit right along side the men, and so were truly dangerous in the Spirit.

I can see those imaginary tabloids again with the same the same headline:

Danger- Believers Arrested!

   Paul was taking away the believers in chains. In fact, later in Acts 22:4, Paul admitted that his persecution brought about the deaths of a number of believers. In our minds, this sudden onset of hard times for the believers is a dangerous tragedy. But let me show you something: Look up the Greek word that is used in verse 4 that is translated “scattered”:

diaspeiro, dee-as-pi’-ro; from Greek (dia) which means  through, on account of ,and  because of.  The second word is speiro which literally means to SOW as in planting a seed. In fact, Speiro is the very word translated as "Sow" used in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 and Luke 8, in the famous parable about sowing seed in the kingdom in Matthew 13, the parable of the talents in Mathew 25, and also the teaching from Matthew Six and Luke Twelve, talking about how the birds do not sow but are provided for by God. So while the church may have looked upon this persecution as a tragedy, the word of God literally says that ON ACCOUNT OF THIS Persecution THE CHURCH WAS SOWN OUT AS SEED, so as to bear a crop in the kingdom of God!

   So if you just read your trusty English bible, you get the picture of the believers fleeing for their lives. In fact, the “Hell Daily Chronicle” newspaper probably had the same headline- Believers arrested! But what God is literally saying here is that during this time of persecution, He “arrested” the church that was on one path, and sowed them into the place where they will bear fruit.

    (By they way- if you are feeling a little dry in your scripture reading sometime, I DARE you to dig a little deeper and look of the meaning of the original words. The revelations you will get will amaze you.)

   So what had Jesus told them to do? He told them to go into all the world. Instead the formed a commune. Now, it is noteworthy that they shared their possessions and fed the widows, but instead of taking care of business they had degenerated to arguing over who got more food. Frequently today you hear that first church in Jerusalem held up as a model, because of their giving. Well. I’m all in favor of giving. If God tells you to give your money to build a church in some foreign country, or give to the poor, DO IT! But just the act of giving is not all that great if you are not doing what you were told to do, which in their case was to go into all the world.

    So Look what happened- The church was scattered. But Phillip, another of the seven deacons, went out and started a revival! Others spread out from Jerusalem and begin to take the Gospel to the nations. It took a persecution to shake the comfortable church, riddled with internal jealousies and rivalries, out of being a nice commune focused on taking care of its own, transforming it into the world-changing group that it became. Sometimes whole churches need to be arrested- BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!

     And sometime God will allow the enemy to overplay his hand, so that He can move strongly on behalf of the kingdom. The Lord will allow the enemy to push against God’s people. Maybe they lose a job, or become ill. But then the Lord will intervene, strengthening His people and building a mighty testimony. That’s what happened here. The enemy came against the comfortable church with a little persecution, and God used it to align them with their destiny to change nations.

   So now again the front page of the Hell daily news reads-
 

Danger- Believers Arrested!
 

   Now they have become a weapon that endangers the very strongholds of Satan. Jesus had told the believers to go to the nations- But it took some shaking to get them out of their comfort zone to actually go. If you are going through some tough times, sometimes God uses those times to prepare you for his purposes. Now, they had become truly dangerous.

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