The Word Made Plain

Guest (Female): Welcome to The Word Made Plain with senior pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bibles to Acts chapter 5, verses 12 through 16.

Tony Clark: No one is a Christian your whole life. You might have been going to church since you came out the womb, but that doesn't mean you're a Christian. And so here, the early church was not about that at all. And the early church, the people esteemed them very highly. What we see today is that the world doesn't esteem the church highly at all. They think the church is outdated, out of touch, judgmental. It's just the view that the world has of the church today, an incredible contrast between the early church and the church today.

Why is it that they view us this way? Because there's no unity, there's no purity in the church, and as a result, there's no power seen in the church, not like these verses are describing. So instead of miraculous signs being seen, like we see in these verses, we have man-centered programs in the church today. We have a church where entertainment is at the root of it. I love how one pastor put it. He said instead of the feeding of the sheep, what we have is the entertainment of the goats. He said that's what's being seen in the church today.

As a result of the purity and unity and power in the church, verse 14 says, "And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women." Unfortunately, what we're seeing today in America is multitudes of both men and women leaving the Lord and leaving the church. The sad truth is that the US has become the third largest unchurched, unreached people group in the world behind China and India, with both of those countries boasting of over a billion people.

America has approximately 360 million people and we're the third most unreached group in the world today. Listen to this: now people overseas are sending missionaries to America. What a contrast of events that is now taking place. This is why we need nothing less than a true revival, like in the first and second great awakenings of the 1700s and 1800s. But it starts with us repenting of our sins and our impurity and plead for God's holiness in our lives.

We need to commit to prayer, like in the 100-year Moravian revival that took place in 1727. Incredible. They took seriously the Word of God that said the fire of God—there's a verse in Leviticus—it said that the fire of God should never go out. So they committed to praying around the clock, 24 hours a day, praying, seeking God. That revival and that prayer lasted 100 years. Incredible. People don't realize it, but it was the Moravian prayer of 1727 that what came out of that was the first and second great awakenings under Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney.

It's an amazing thing that took place. It also sparked what took place in 1857 in the Layman's Prayer Revival. They prayed every day at noon in New York, and it spread across the country. It's an amazing thing. That Moravian prayer was so powerful. They took seriously that God will stir the hearts of this world for Jesus Christ, that they went out around the world to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Watch this: they were so serious, many of them sold themselves into slavery in order to reach the slaves with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a result of the Moravian prayer.

During revivals, we see multitudes of both men and women increasingly added to the Lord, like verse 14 says. Under the second great awakening under Finney, Finney went around the country speaking, but up in Rochester, New York, a great move of God where over 100,000 people gave their life to the Lord under his ministry there, under the second great awakening. We also know that the Welsh revival of 1904, that Evan Roberts, he first started by saying, "God, bend me. Bend me to your will and your way."

God bent him and revival broke out, and he began to pray that God will save 100,000 people. If you look under the Welsh revival, 100,000 people got saved during that time. This is how you know revival has taken place: when purity and power is seen and multitudes of both men and women are added to the Lord. Now, what happened when the apostles laid hands on the people? What were some of the miraculous signs that were done that we left off with in verse 12? Well, verse 15 says that they brought the sick out in the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.

They were a pure church and a clean church, which made them a clear channel by which God could do the miraculous through them. And I believe that this is why we don't see God doing the miraculous in and through the church today, because we're not a clean nor a pure vessel by which God can flow through. So instead of being purified, instead of being clean, instead of getting our hearts right with God, theologians back in the day said, "Well, God isn't doing the miraculous today because those miracles ended at the death of the last apostle. Those miracles ended when we got the completion of the Bible."

I always say, "Well, what does the completion of the Bible got to do with the miraculous?" Well, they say, "Because we have the completion of the Bible, there's no more need for these kind of miraculous signs." Are you kidding me? We don't see God doing what He's doing in the book of Acts. We don't see it today because we're not a pure, clean, nor holy church by which God can flow through. We have a lot of impure things we're involved in, and we're involved with a lot of unclean activities.

Ephesians 5:5 says, "For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of God," let alone do the miraculous through them. In Galatians 5:19 and 20, as well as Colossians 3:5, it talks about the unclean person. I want to draw your attention to this phrase. The Greek word for unclean in these verses is *akathartos*. It's an amazing word that means to be impure or unclean. However, it is a word that was used in the medical community to refer to an infected, oozing wound.

This word was used biblically to refer to any uncleanness that prevented someone from approaching God. So it means any sexual uncleanness that keeps us from approaching the Lord. Pornography, living together as husband and wife and you're not married, constantly watching movies with nudity in it will cause us to interpret God's conviction as condemnation and convince us that we can no longer approach or come to God. And what happens is church attendance becomes sporadic, then not at all.

Satan convinces you that you can't approach God, you rotten, unclean sinner. Let me help you with this, because there's a difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction comes from God, and the purpose is to draw us back to Him. Condemnation comes from Satan, and its purpose is to keep us from God. Now, if you're a believer and God's Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin, Satan will come along and try to turn God's conviction into condemnation.

How can we know the difference? When we sin, God will convict us to bring us back to Him. Satan will condemn us, especially when we're involved in uncleanness, and tell us that we can never come back to God, you dirty, unclean person. But I'm here to tell you that you can come back to Jesus Christ, to the cross, and to repentance, and He will cleanse you from all of your uncleanness. This is what the cross is all about. The Bible says if we confess our sins before Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Satan will whisper and say, "You can't go to God. You better not go to God. Why are you trying to go to church, you rotten, unclean thing? You stay away from church and stay away from God. Or you go to God, that ceiling is coming down on you." Stay away. That's condemnation. That's condemnation. Conviction, God is saying, "Come. Come, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they're red like crimson, they shall be white as wool. Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come. He who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." God is constantly telling us and calling us to come to Him for cleansing of our uncleanness. Now it says in verse 15 that they brought out the sick out into the streets, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Now, we all know that there's nothing miraculous about a shadow, nor in oil, nor in the laying on of the hands, nor in the hem of Jesus's garment. These are points of contact to release our faith.

Like the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew 9:21, she said, "If only I can touch His garment. I see the multitude here. I can't get to Him personally, but if I can just touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made well." So for her, the hem of His garment was the point of contact to release her faith. And for these people, it was Peter's shadow. They said, "I see the multitudes. I would never get him, but I know what's a nice sunny day out and I guarantee if his shadow pass by, if I just get his shadow, I'm going to be made well."

Let me give you an example of this. My dad had a lump on his wrist for years and he would get it surgically removed and it would come back. He would have another operation and it would return. He told me one day he was watching Christian TV and a preacher said, "If you want to be healed, lay your hands on the TV." My dad did and the lump disappeared and never returned. Now, we all know that there's nothing magical about a TV set. It was the point of contact to release my dad's faith and like the woman with the issue of blood and like the sick people here, my dad was healed.

For some of you, as soon as you pray with someone after service, that will be the point of contact to release your faith. Then there are some of you who are a little delusional who think, "Well, if I can only get Pastor Tony to pray for me." Ain't nothing magical about my prayer either. "If I can only get Pastor Tony to pray for me, then I will be healed." That will be the point of contact to release your faith. Now I want to draw your attention to the beds and couches that the people brought the sick people on.

It was very significant. The Greek word for beds is *clinārion*, and it's a word that refers to the beds or cots or couches that the rich people were carried on. You've seen many biblical movies that those who are royalty, they were carried on these couches. That's what this word is referring to. Now, the couches is a different Greek word, *krabattōn*. It describes the straw mattresses commonly used by the poor. Luke, the author, uses these two terms to show that both the rich and the poor sought healing from the apostles.

The point is this: when God is moving, it doesn't matter what your economic standings are in the world. You want God's touch for you and for your loved ones. It doesn't matter at all. So don't envy the lifestyle of the rich and famous. They need Jesus, too. They need to repent of their sins as well. The word started to spread to the point where verse 16 says that multitudes gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

This is why I believe that Satan is associated with uncleanness, specifically sexual uncleanness. Only Jesus can deliver someone from pornography or the sex industry, whether that is the porn industry, prostitution, webcams where you have this need to have men gaze upon you in a sexual way, sex trafficking, and the list goes on of unclean things. Only Jesus, the blood and power of Jesus, can deliver you from such a thing. It's not a matter of "I'm watching this and let me just stop watching it." You cannot. Satan is behind that. So a demonic spirit is behind that industry because every time that word used, uncleanness, in the scriptures, it always is connected to sexual uncleanness.

Let me wrap it up with this because I want to spend a couple of minutes with this thought. We looked at the powerful and prayerful church and we can be a church like this, like we see here in the early church, but some things need to be removed and repented of out of our lives. We must put away lying and deception. We must repent of our sexual uncleanness so a purity can happen at the church. We must become a church that prays and prays for a revival.

When God shows up, signs and wonders will occur, like verse 12 says. The community will esteem the church highly, like verse 13 says. Believers will be increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. Multitudes will come from surrounding cities, bringing rich and poor people needing to be touched by God. And these are the results when revival is taking place. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, like Second Corinthians 7:1 teaches us to do.

I believe that God wants to visit His church in our time, but we must meet these requirements first. Some of you need to repent and be set free from sexual uncleanness. It starts with accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I put emphasis on Lord and Savior because there are many people who want Jesus as their Savior. You want to save you from Hell, you want some fire insurance, but you don't want Him as Lord telling you what to do every day of your life. He comes as both.

He comes as Lord and Savior. You cannot separate the two. He comes as both. And that's this is the delusion that people have constantly is that they think they can just accept Jesus as their Savior and then go live like they want to live. Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way at all. So it starts with us repenting of our sin and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We all need to cry out for purity and for forgiveness for sinning against a holy God.

I believe God wants to show up in the church today. God is no respecter of persons. The Bible said that the eyes of the Lord are going to and fro throughout the earth, seeking someone He can show Himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are loyal to Him. God is looking for someone. In the book of Ezekiel it said, "Hey, who's going to stand in the gap?" He's looking for someone to stand in the gap and pray. Who's going to cry out?

In every generation that God brought revival, He moved upon someone to start crying out to Him and God showed up. I just love studying about revivals, that all of a sudden people started to pray and then all of a sudden God would just show up. It said that 2:00 in the morning during a revival that was overseas in 1949, over in the Islands of Lewis, that God all of a sudden, the people, they began to pray. It was two sisters that started. They were elderly people. One was half blind. They just started to pray that God would move.

The next thing you know, it began to spread. Lights, lanterns were lit around that little community. People were up praying. Some of those lamps didn't go out all night because they were going all night praying. There were people praying in a barn. And all of a sudden as they're praying in the barn, face on the straw, all of a sudden one of them got up and said, "Oh God, is my hands clean? Is my heart pure?" And he fell back down on the straw and the power of God fell down upon that place.

All of a sudden they woke up the pastor, 2:00 in the morning, six or seven hundred people crowded outside the church, seeking mercy, crying out, "Is there mercy for me?" God's power came down. 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, said that 75 percent of them were saved before they got inside the church because they cried out for mercy. When God comes down, that's what we're praying for, that God will come and visit His people. I love what Leonard Ravenhill said. He said it breaks his heart that we have a sick church in a dying world. The church is sick. It's not whole in a world that's dying all around us.

And we want to be like them. We go to their movies, we watch their shows, we indulge in the things they indulge in. We smoke, we drink, we party, we do everything else the world is doing, and we wonder why God doesn't show up.

Guest (Female): We hope you enjoyed this study from the book of Acts. If you'd like to reach out to Pastor Tony, you can do so through his website at t-m-p-p-o-d-c-a-s-t dot com. That's T-M-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T dot com. For a copy of this study, please reach out to our office at 7-5-7-8-6-7-8-5-3-0. Again, that number is 7-5-7-8-6-7-8-5-3-0. Join us again next time for another study in the Word Made Plain.