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Staying Power

"I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them."~Acts 5:38-39

The above quote may seem like an odd way to start a post. In fact, there may be some of you that don't even realize that this is in the Bible. I didn't really notice it until two years ago, and that was after having read the Bible a couple of times. This verse isn't often quoted, it's not one that's assigned to be memorized, and, at least at my church, it's not really preached about. However, I feel that this verse is as important to the spread of Christianity now as it was when it was first said almost 2,000 years ago.

This statement was said by a Pharisee named Gamaliel during the time when Christianity was just getting its start. The Pharisees were angered by Peter and John's refusal to stop speaking about Jesus. They were planning their next move when Gamaliel spoke up. He reminded the others of times when a person rose up among the Israelites and gained followers, only to have those followers scatter once their leader was dead. In saying what he did, he was warning the other Pharisees that they may be fighting against God's wishes by prosecuting Peter and John.

So why is this verse so important today? Simply because there are still people who wish to silence us. Many people who don't believe in God seem to think we shouldn't either. They will do whatever they can to keep us from believing, such as challenging the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance or forcing Ten Commandments monuments to be torn down. They think we're crazy for believing a book written thousands of years ago. However, when I think about this quote, I think that they might be the crazy ones.

The militant atheists we see today are not the first to challenge our faith, nor will they be the last. However, our faith has survived almost two thousand years for one very important reason: it wasn't our idea. If Jesus Christ was a myth invented by first century people, no one would be believing in Him today, and they would only be talking about Him in history and literature classes, if even then. That's what happened to the Roman and Greek gods of the ancient world. However, when it comes to Jesus, that has never and will never be true because we did not create Him. Historical evidence proves His existence, and God's Word proves His divinity. So as Gamaliel so wisely put it, if what we believe was of human origin, it would have failed almost two thousand years ago. The fact that it hasn't proves that it is of divine origin, and absolutely nothing will be able to overthrow it.

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