The problem of racism is thousands of years old. The Bible repeatedly speaks about it. Is there a solution and would you accept the real solution if you found it?
Preaching to the Greeks in Athens, Paul said, “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:24).
Why is it then, if God has made of one blood all nations, that the different races or nations cannot get along? The reason is because we are listening to two different spirits. Notice what the Holy Spirit does for those that follow the Lord. It says, “He [Jesus] Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie and wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–15, literal translation).
There you have a recipe for unity, how different peoples, different nations, different races can all be in harmony and unity. However, not all are listening to the same spirit. It is the Holy Spirit only that brings unity, not only in the church but also in the nation.
There was infighting in the church at Corinth. Paul indicates that some would preach another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4). Two Jesus, two beliefs—disunity.
There is more than one Jesus preached in the world today, just like there was back then. Many people say they believe in Jesus, but they don’t all believe in the same Jesus. There are two supernatural spirits seeking control of this planet. These two spirits are at enmity with one another. Everybody is under the control of one or the other. One is the Spirit of God and the other is an evil spirit.
Paul wrote that the other Jesus would preach a different gospel, one which they have not accepted—but they may well put up with it! Those listening to the voice of a different spirit will believe in a different Jesus, believe in a different gospel, and then there will be strife. We are all under the control of supernatural forces, whether we know it or not.
It says in Acts 14:1–7, “Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of the Jews and of the Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren. Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.
“But the multitude of the city was divided: part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles. And when a violent attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them, they became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe … . And they were preaching the gospel there.”
That still happens today. People who do not believe the gospel want to destroy those who proclaim it or believe it. There are several reasons for this. One is, when people proclaim the gospel and what it involves, those who do not believe do not want to accept the provisions it provides. They want to be saved a different way, their own way. There are many philosophies in the world today offering salvation through many different systems. But the Bible says, there is only one Person who can save you—Jesus, God’s dear Son.
Peter said there is no other name under heaven by which you can be saved (Acts 4:12).
So, after they had preached the gospel they fled. There were many that believed, but there also was a lot of opposition. Jesus had told them that if, when they preach, the people won’t believe, flee, shake the dust off their feet and go to another place. So they fled to another place. They went to Lystra and Derbe, and some terrible things happened there also. Saul, who later became the apostle Paul, was one of those who had consented to the stoning of Stephen. And in Lystra, eventually the apostle Paul was stoned himself. Thinking him to be dead, they dragged him out of the city but he was not dead.
The gospel, if it is not accepted, can stir up the worst passions in the human heart, because most people do not want to turn their life over to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. They do not want to bring their life into subjection to the government of heaven, to the law of heaven. They want to live and do whatever they please. There are a lot of theologies today teaching people that you can be saved just the way you are.
The Bible does not teach that. The Bible says that if you are going to be saved, you must be changed, be born again and receive a new heart and a new spirit. There is no way you can be saved unless this miraculous change happens in your heart and in your mind. Jesus told this to Nicodemus in John 3.
The Bible says, “And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, ‘Stand up straight on your feet!’ And he leaped and walked” (Acts 14:8–10).
Right there in public a miracle is worked. A man, crippled from the time he was born, is instantly healed; he can leap and walk. Then it says, “Now when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’ And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker” (verses 11, 12). These were superstitious, heathen people hearing the gospel for the first time, but they had still imbibed much of their pagan philosophy so they got the priest of the Zeus, and they brought oxen and garlands to the gate intending to sacrifice with the multitudes and offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, believing them to be gods.
Verses 14–17: “But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless [vain] things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, giving us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.’ ”
With these sayings, they could scarcely restrain the multitude from sacrificing to them. During their journeys, the apostles ran into all kinds of faiths and religions. They were brought in contact with the Jewish bigotry and intolerance, with sorcery and blasphemy, unjust magistrates, superstition and idolatry. Now, these people wanted to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. Not being allowed to do that they became disappointed.
It is very interesting to see what happens when people are disappointed. It is often a time when they exercise very poor judgment. We often see it happen among young people. Somebody is jilted in a love affair, but something goes wrong and they flip. In a very short time, without adequate time to think things over, they marry somebody they do not know very well. Whether it turns out good or bad is a matter of conjecture, nobody knows. Often when a person is disappointed it is possible while under that kind of emotional situation, to make some very poor judgments. Especially is this the case if you have just experienced a death in your family or some traumatic event. It is very dangerous to trust poor counselors that encourage you to do something that, if you were in a different frame of mind, you would know it was not the wisest thing to do.
“Paul and Barnabas scarcely restrained them from offering sacrifices to them” (verse 18, literal translation). It says in verse 19, “Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.”
These Jews persuaded the multitudes that Paul and Barnabas were not only gods, but they were doing these miracles by means of evil spirits of demons whom these men served. They denied that God had any part in this miracle that had been worked. These superstitious people were acquainted with demons because, in the pagan religions, they actually worshiped devils and were acquainted with the idea that there were good and evil forces in the world. Now, the very people who wanted to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as gods, were deceived into believing that this miracle was not worked by the God of heaven, but it was accomplished through demons and were about to destroy them.
This was the same class of people that formerly had accused Jesus Christ of casting out devils through the power of the devils. Matthew 12:24–28 says, “Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, ‘This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.’ But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.’ ”
The people were deceived by these Jews who were prejudiced against the apostles and against the gospel of Jesus Christ, into thinking that these were false teachers and had worked this miracle by the power of demons, just as was the accusation against Jesus. The characters of Paul and Barnabas were misrepresented so that the heathens thought that they were now worse than murderers and whoever should put them out of the world would be doing a service for God. So, the Bible says, “They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.”
It is still true today, that those who believe and teach the truths of God’s word, meet opposition from unprincipled persons who refuse to accept the truth and will not hesitate to prevaricate, and to even circulate the most glaring falsehoods, in order to destroy the influence and hedge up the way of a person, whom God has sent, with a message of warning to the world. There are many people who do not want to hear the message of warning, especially that message found in Revelation the 14th chapter, the three angels’ messages.
These warn that we are living in the hour of God’s judgment. Most people do not want to believe there is a judgment and that we are all going to be called to account for the lives that we have lived in this world. The multitudes decided to stone Paul. Immediately the experience of Stephen came vividly into his mind as he was one of those who had consented for Stephen to be stoned. Now he was to share Stephen’s fate and he remembered that man of God when he was being stoned said, “I see the heavens opened and I see the Son of man standing at the right hand of the throne of God” (Acts 7:56, literal translation)!
This could have been Paul’s last moments in this world. He was stoned until he was unconscious and the people thought he was dead and dragged his body outside of the city while the Christians who were around him mourned. You too would mourn if one of the leaders in your church was stoned to death and his or her body was lying outside the gate of the city.
As the Christians mourned over him, all of a sudden, he came to with rejoicing that he had been allowed to suffer for the name of Christ. “When the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God’ ” (Acts 14:20–22).
Today, multitudes want an easy religion. They are not interested in a religion that involves hardship. They want to go to heaven as it is said, “sitting down.” But that is not the gospel, that is not the religion of the New Testament. Notice what Paul says about his experience in 2 Corinthians 11:23–26: “In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.” This was the tribulation the apostle Paul endured. He encouraged the Christians to continue in the grace of God and said, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”
The apostle John was given a vision of the future when those who had endured these tribulations in the Christian walk inherited eternal life. He says, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues [or languages], standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’
“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. … They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ ” (Revelation 7:9–17).
The day is coming when tribulation will be over, but that is not in this world, that is in the next world. Jesus said to His followers, just before His crucifixion, in John the 16th chapter, verse 33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Jesus has not promised to His followers that they would have no tribulation in this world. In fact, He said just the opposite. He said you will have trouble, but be of good courage.
Paul told the Christians, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.” A vision was given to John the revelator in Revelation 7. Who are these people who make up the countless multitude from all nations who are saved? They are those who have come out of great tribulation.
We live in a world of suffering, pain, sickness, and death, and these things happen to Christians as well as non-Christians. God has not promised us a free ride in this world, but He has promised us something much better. He has promised to sustain us, to support us, and to help us in all of our tribulation.
In 1 Corinthians 10:12, 13 it says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
God has promised to “never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He will support you and help you so that you will be able to endure the trouble that you have in this world.
(Unless appearing in quoted references or otherwise identified, Bible texts are from the New King James Version.)
Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.