We have been studying the book of Acts on Wednesday evenings. One of the things we have seen is that there is a pattern repeated throughout this book. The church is empowered by the Holy Spirit, the church shares the Gospel with boldness, people are saved, the church is united and prays together – then Satan attacks the church from the outside. But the church remains united and continues to pray together, they share the Gospel with boldness and people are saved. Satan then tries to attack the church through other external sources, but the people remain united and pray together and Satan’s efforts are defeated.
When attacks from the outside are unsuccessful, Satan then attacks the church from the inside and tries to sow seeds of disunity and discouragement. But the people continue to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to detect and defeat the internal attacks. They remain united and pray together, they continue to share the Gospel with boldness and people are saved.
Throughout the book of Acts, as long as the church relied on the Holy Spirit, remained united and prayed together, Satan’s attacks were unsuccessful. It was only when the church began to rely on its own resources instead of the Spirit that the attacks on the church began to splinter the unity and power of the church.
In the last several weeks, we have seen God working in Fee Fee Baptist Church. We have celebrated the baptism of several of our children. (Thanks goes to Kathy Scott and our great children’s workers who faithfully share the Gospel with the children.) We have seen some new families join the church. We have had a powerful and life-changing DNOW experience for our youth. (Thanks to Kyle Baldwin and the youth workers.) These are just a few of the wonderful things that God is doing in our midst.
We can gain strength and encouragement from seeing what happens when a church is focused on Kingdom work. This should cause us to pray together even more fervently and work together to spread the Gospel in our community.
But we also need to remember that Satan works the same way today that he did in the first century church. He does not like to see a church praying and working together. He does not like to see people responding to the Gospel. He does not like to see God’s Kingdom advancing. His methods of trying to stop a church always include discouragement, division and tempting us to rely on our own resources and not on the Holy Spirit.
We need to be alert to Satan’s attacks and remain united, praying together that God’s Spirit will continue to empower us to be bold in building God’s Kingdom.