Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Thursday, March 22, 2018 | Reading: Exodus 33:1-11, Exodus 4, Gen 3:1-21
Topic: The Tabernacle of God 388
Scripture: But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this building. (Heb 9:11)
Note: 2Cor 5:1, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” It was tough during the formative years of the Church to be identified as one of the Christians. During the period when the Church was under siege from the hands of persecutors and terrorists like Saul, one of the easiest means of identification for the enemy was to enquire of the people of The Way. It was virtually impossible to miss these people of The Way as they were quite nonchalant about their faith, inspite of the security risk it posed to their lives.
For all the hell from Saul and his death squad against the Christians, there was no open display of anxiety on the possible threats to their lives. Saul, who was deranged with wild passion for the blood of the Christians, had lost every form of decorum expected of a Jewish scholar who trained under the affable Gamaliel. The split personality display from Saul, an expert in Jewish law, Greek law and Roman law, was a far-cry from that of his respected mentor. Saul didn’t differentiate between having to rudely apprehend both men and women in his ruthless pursuit to annihilate Christianity.
The open disregard for the people of The Way, mostly treated derogatorily as sectarians and obnoxious heretics by the religious ruling class who saw them as a threat to Judaism, was to see no sight of relief until the dramatic arrest of the tormentor-in-chief, Saul, by Jesus Christ Himself. On that fateful day when Saul was breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the Christians, the Lord proved to Saul that He had the power to cause the arrest of any terrorist, persecutor or hater, and to terminate any evil collusion or assignment against His children.
Saul now Paul, with his pristine knowledge in the Hebrew scriptures and interpretation of the law, an unusual scholar in both Greek and Roman law, previously a pawn in the hands of the religious cabal operating from Jerusalem, had dramatically been turned from a man who thought he was fighting heretics and sectarians, into a defender of that which he previously sought to destroy. If Paul, with all the limitless and boundless authority in his hands to destroy Christianity failed in such a spectacular manner, given all the resources available to him, then no amount of persecution or imagined terrorism against the Church, masterminded from the pit of hell shall be able to prevail against the Church.
Food for thought: Men and hell may do their worst against the Church out of hatred or prejudice, but one thing we know is that they shall always fail.
Declaration: And I say also to you, That you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matt 16:18
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
