Acts: An Unfinished Story

Contemporary views of the church today are anything but complimentary. One of the nicer things said about the church is that it is irrelevant as far as saying anything to today's world is concerned.

In Acts 2 we left our heroes, the apostles and their friends, waiting in the courts of the temple. If that sounds like an introduction to a television serial it is only because this is the book where the action is -- the book of Acts. As the apostles and their friends waited in the temple courts, three amazing things happened: There was a sound like a great blast of wind which roared through the house where they were sitting, the porch of Solomon. There also appeared tongues of fire dancing upon the head of each of the one hundred and twenty believers, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. That is the phenomenon of Pentecost, the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ the body of Christ; it was the birthday of the church.

Last week we left our heroes, the apostles, in the temple courts of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. Peter was explaining the apparent drunkenness of the believers to the crowd that gathered when they heard the siren sound of the mighty rushing wind that came when the Holy Spirit fell upon these individuals. He explained the strange excitement of these 120 people, and also their strange utterances, their speaking the praise of God in many languages, even though they were apparently peasants from the province of Galilee. He said this was what the prophet Joel had predicted would happen: that God would begin a new age, what we now call "the age of the Spirit," and that it would begin and be characterized by a proclamation of the truth by all kinds of people and all classes of society -- men and women, young and old, servants and masters, Jews and Gentiles -- all kinds of flesh. The Spirit of God would come upon them and they would be able to speak the truth about Jesus Christ. The age, Joel said, would begin by proclamation, but it would end with tribulation. At the end there would be the strange darkening of the sun and moon, and signs in the heavens and on the earth.

There has been a remarkable awakening sweeping across college campuses in our country today. There is a report in one of our Christian magazines of a most remarkable week of meetings that began in the chapel of Asbury College, in Wilmore, Kentucky, a few weeks ago, and went on continuously for six or seven days and nights. People would come in and fall under a deep conviction of the brokenness and the fragmentation of their lives with other Christians. Their hearts were melted and opened toward one another, and they forgave each other, confessing the things they were doing that were offensive to one another, and restoring each other in love and grace. News of that was reported in chapel at Azusa Pacific College in California, and an awakening of this nature broke out there. I just received word yesterday that it has started in Taylor University, in Indiana, where a team from this church will be going next month. Also something similar now is reported in Malone College, in Ohio.

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at that gate of the temple which is called Beautiful to ask alms of those who entered the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, with John, and said, "Look at us." And he fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. (Acts 3:1-8 RSV)