Miracles Witnessed

Articles

Miracles Witnessed

By Skip Toomaloo
Dec. 4, 2006

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38

Peter was speaking from personal experience with what he had witnessed in the lives of the followers of Jesus. He had seen more than 5000 people fed in one sitting with but a few loafs of bread and a few small fish. He had seen the blind given sight and the lame given back their legs. He had seen Lazarus raised from death after many days in the grave. He had seen Roman soldiers humbled in faith before the man he now preached as the Son of God.

Peter had been filled with the Holy Spirit of God only moments before his Pentecost sermon. He had not planned this sermon. He and the others with him were hiding from the authorities. It wasn’t until the Holy Spirit indwelt the small band of 120 souls that they became bold enough to do as Jesus said they would do.

This is not about baptism. My personal opinion of water baptism is that it gets a person wet and that’s about it unless the person has already turned his life over to God through repentance and faith in Jesus.

This is about repentance. Repentance was spoken of by Jesus as the most necessary of the things to please God the Father. Repentance is the turning away from that known to be wrong toward that known to be right and moral. Repentance is not an easy thing to invoke.

The scriptures tell us that no man seeks God. All men are sinners and all men need that salvation offered as a free gift through faith.

I have written before the truth that “faith” too is a gift. The gifts of God are never things to be earned. The gifts from God are simply to be received. A gift does absolutely no good if not accepted and used by the recipient.

Repentance too is a gift. It is rendered by the Holy Ghost to be received by the individual being prompted toward faith. “Faith comes by hearing…” we are told, and “hearing by the word of God.”

The believer is the man who has lost his fear. He has lost his fear of God. He has no fear of man. The threat of death does not trouble the believer.

Peter and the others were in direct threat of death, yet they boldly left their hiding place to give open testimony of the things that had happened to them and the things the holy Spirit was bringing to their memory.

The other instant miracle of the day was that of all the various congregants in the courtyard, all could understand the words from Peter’s mouth. This was a matter of astonishment because the people could not at first grasp a Galilean being understood by Greeks, Phrygians, Romans and the like. It wasn’t until the sermon was done and the people faced the truth of Peter’s summation that the miracle became apparent.

Three thousand individuals understood the meanings of the few days that had passed after Jesus was crucified. They knew of the missing body and the poor explanations of the Pharisees and the Romans. They were faced with inescapable truth. They repented and proved their understanding through the act of baptism.

Peter later wrote that: “16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1: 16-18)

Peter’s words are as true today as when he wrote them in the first century. In the first century, people heard the words, believed, repented and were “baptized for the remission of sins”. So what has changed since the day of Pentecost?

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Email Skip: skiptoomaloo@hotmail.com

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