Finally!!! My power is back on; my internet is working; I have heat in my home; and the ability to post this PODCAST!!!
Worth waiting for, I believe.
Enjoy!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, I am amazed.
Gloriously so.
My hope and prayer is that after hearing this, you will be amazed too.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Gratefully used with permission from my friend, Udi Merioz
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, our bountiful banquet table of Truth is overflowing.
A spiritual smorgasbord guaranteed to challenge your thinking and rock your worldview.
Get ready for this delectable culinary delight, courtesy of Messers Paul, Barnabas, and Mark.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
God bless you richly as you listen.
“The apostles (rejoiced that) God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.”
As you will hear in this PODCAST, a most-interesting word, “disgrace.” Both the NKJV and the NASB translate it “worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” In the ESV? “Worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.
It’s a word that means to render infamous through insult, innuendo, and/or intimidation; to strip someone of their honor and dignity; to sully one’s name and reputation.
This is the exact same pattern that we saw with Jesus—a gradual escalation of opposition against Him, that we are now seeing intensify against the Apostles.
In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested, imprisoned, warned, and threatened.
Here in Acts 5, all twelve Apostles were arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. They were publicly disgraced, purposefully stripped of their honor as well as their skin, insulted, rendered infamous, their reputations sullied before the watching world.
It should therefore come as no surprise that come Acts 7, the situation will have escalated to the point to where Stephen will be stoned to death.
So what happened now to cause this next step in the escalation of opposition and intimidation? Fact is, it’s really quite a story! One that give to us a heartwarming insight into the thinking and feelings of this first generation of committed Christ-followers. A window both into their world and into their souls.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Let me take you back to Tuesday of Jesus’ final week.
On that Tuesday, as you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus made a most-remarkable promise to His disciples, and by extension, to us.
Allow me to remind you of what happened in Luke 21:
“Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, ‘The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!’”
Now listen to His promise:
“But before all this occurs, there will be a time of great persecution. You will be dragged into synagogues and prisons, and you will stand trial before kings and governors because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell them about me. So don’t worry in advance about how to answer the charges against you, for I will give you the right words and such wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to reply or refute you!”
At the time, the disciples had no idea what Jesus meant by all of that. Now, here, in Acts 4, just 8-ten or so weeks later, they suddenly knew exactly what Jesus meant by all of that.
For first time in the now-nearly two thousand year history of Church, an earsplitting thunderclap of persecution now sounded throughout the Holy City, Jerusalem. So true to Jesus’ prediction made in Luke 21, Peter and John were unceremoniously dragged into prison, and held in there there overnight.
The next morning they were hauled before the highest levels of their religious hierarchy to stand trial.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today,” Acts 3:24.
What a remarkable statement.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with those eleven words, Peter alerted that unsuspecting crowd that had gathered at the Temple for their daily 3PM prayers that the singular message of the entire OT was now beginning to be fulfilled right before their amazed and curious eyes.
Jerusalem in all of its storied history had never before experienced anything like the events of the past two-to-three months. Going all the way back to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into the Holy City, then His cleansing of the Temple, the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Day of Pentecost. And now, for the past two-to-three months, nonstop, ongoing miracles.
All of that leading up to this: a very public, and deafeningly loud miracle—the healing of the lame man whom everyone in Temple precincts that day had passed every day on their way up to Temple.
I say loud because, as we can only imagine, when this man now went “walking and leaping and praising God” throughout Temple courts, everyone heard him.
And everyone naturally wondered, “What on earth is going on around here?”
Peter was about to tell them exactly “What on earth is going on around here?”
As it turns out, A LOT was going on around here.
Peter’s answer to that question?
“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today.”
The entire Old Testament—every story, prophecy, promise, sacrifice, festival, feast day, type, symbol, sign—all of it pointed to that day here in Acts 3, and all that they were witnessing now.
Get ready for a wild ride, courtesy of Peter.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Dewey Bertolini’s Podcast
The Latest News from Jerusalem
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Dewey Bertolini 