Pastor John,
Last Wednesday when Damien was telling his testimony and what Jesus opened (https://youtu.be/h4p69MHkybk?si=BNUxYDpBKs-Xg-qP). When he said Jesus took a seat beside his Father but something else [the Spirit] came out, I felt that come straight from heaven. The Spirit fell on me and I said out loud, “Oh Jesus, I can feel that!” I love to feel the truth!
It was the same experience when Jerry testified yesterday about the irrefutable proof that the Gentiles had been adopted into the family of God. I felt that truth bubble out of my heart, and my soul was thrilled.
It feels like Jesus is fine tuning, sharpening and packing down deep the truth we have been taught! I rejoice in it! Every time I hear it, any way it comes, my heart rejoices! This is why we live!
I keep thinking of what Sue said, “We are the chosen of the chosen!” Amen!
Michelle
==========
Jerry’s Testimony:
Convincing Evidence
The earliest saints were not confused about the importance of the sound of the Spirit, and that knowledge played a critical role in Peter convincing the doubtful leaders of the Assembly in Jerusalem that Gentiles had received God’s Spirit. Peter and the six Jewish brothers with him knew that God had given Gentiles the Spirit because they “heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God” (Acts 10:46). They were astonished to hear the sound of the Spirit coming from the mouths of uncircumcised Gentiles, but that sound is what compelled them to believe what God had done, and when Peter brought his report back to Jerusalem, it also compelled the elders of the Assembly there to accept it. They were, at first, displeased that Peter had gone to a Gentile’s house (Acts 11:2–3), but they could not deny Peter’s testimony when he told them,
Acts 11
- “As I began to speak, the holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.
- Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with holy Spirit.’
- Inasmuch, then, as God gave them the same gift He gave to us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?”
- When they had heard these things, they fell silent, but then they began glorifying God, saying, “Then, God has granted repentance unto life to the Gentiles, too!”
The above is an observation brought to my attention some years ago by a dear brother, Jerry Durham, whose testimony was sent to me in an email, a copy of which follows:
One morning, I was getting ready for work, making my lunch for that day, and as I began crossing the kitchen floor, the Spirit of God started preaching in my inner being. It wasn’t audible in the room, but it was loud and clear to me. So I just listened. This is what I heard: “What was it that convinced the Jews that the Gentiles had been grafted into Christ?”
God’s people at that time, the Jews, knew that the Gentiles did not belong to God; in the minds of Jews, that was an impossibility. Jesus himself had called us Gentiles “dogs” (Mt. 15:26), and He sent His disciples only to the house of Israel (Mt. 10:5). And so, the Israelites – all Israelites – knew that the Gentiles did not belong to God – and we truly did not (Eph. 2:11–12)! If any Gentile had claimed to belong to the God of the Jews, that Gentile would have been laughed at, at the very least.
It is impossible that any Gentile, or “dog”, as Jesus had called Gentiles, could have persuaded a Jew that he was in covenant with the God of Israel simply by claiming it was so. And a Gentile surely couldn’t have persuaded a Jew that he belonged to God by claiming that he “got saved” or that he had “accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior,” as Christians say now. There was absolutely nothing that would have convinced a Jew that any of the Gentiles were also the children of God. Both God and Jesus had taught them otherwise.
When God grafted us Gentiles into this New Covenant in His Son, He had to send the Jews a convincing witness from heaven that such a thing had taken place; otherwise, who among them would believe such a thing? God had to send a “testimony,” a “sign,” from Himself that nobody could doubt, an irrefutable sign so that His people, the Jews, could not deny it.
Now, for that sign!
When Peter was sent to Cornelius the Gentile’s house to preach the gospel of Christ, it says in Acts 10:44–46, “While Peter was still saying these things, the holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the Word. And those of the circumcision who believed, as many as came with Peter, were astonished because the gift of the holy Spirit had also been poured out on the Gentiles! They knew this because they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God.”
So, a sign, God’s proof from heaven, was given that day which astonished those Jews, something that caused Peter to confess in verse 47 that the Gentiles had received God’s Spirit, as well as the Jews. That sign is what proved to Peter and the Jews with him that something impossible had just happened.
The Scriptures tell us that tongues are a sign for unbelievers (1Cor. 14:22). Who could have been in a state of unbelief more than those faithful Jews with Peter on that day? That is, unbelief that God would give Gentiles – “dogs”! – His holy Spirit. But God sent the Jews a sign that day, an irrefutable sign that their God, Jehovah, had done it, so that they would not stumble in their faith at the mercy of God which had been poured out on us poor Gentiles!
God poured out His sign of this covenant on the Jews first, in the second chapter of Acts, and they staggered under the power of God. Then, after the Jews were fully saturated with the truth and convinced of how the Spirit is received, He poured it out on us Gentiles, His adopted children (cf. Rom. 8:15–16). He washed us Gentiles of our sins and gave us the same sign, in love, for the whole world to understand. And how we need the same type of conversion today for the body of Christ, staggering under the power of God, the kind of conversion that would convince even an unbelieving Jew!
God taught me this in my kitchen, bro. John. I can tell this truth, for it is my testimony.
Jerry Durham
