Have you ever been going forward in your walk with God and you are serving and growing and reaching exactly as He has called you to do, and then you meet a barrier. Someone gets right in the way of where God wants you to go and tries to stop what God wants you to do. In Acts 13:5-11 Saul and Barnabas had to deal with a barrier right out of the gate. The scripture says it like this 5 When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus, 7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the magician (for so his name is translated) was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. The name of the barrier was Bar-Jesus, and he was a false prophet who was advising the proconsul for the area. A proconsul was an appointed man of high Roman standing that could help command the military in the extended areas of Rome's influence. When Rome acquired territories beyond Italy they would send these proconsul's as an extra military ranking presence called "consular imperium." These proconsul's were very powerful men and the false prophet Bar-Jesus, which means son of Joshua, had a strong influence on the proconsul Sergio Paulus, and did not want anyone else to come in and weaken his influence. But, Sergio Paulus was wanting an audience with Paul and Barnabas and the barrier was in place, and the barrier's name was Elymas, which means magician. Elymas took it on himself to try and influence the proconsul to not listen to the message of Paul.
This brings in a very important point. Are there people who have put themselves in your path as a barrier to you sharing the message of truth with those who are searching? Believe or not, I have had some Elymas types of individuals throughout my ministry and they have tried to put up high barriers to keep the message of Christ down. It could be that the modern day churches that are dying have many of the Elymas persuasion in control of what goes on in the church and the barriers they put up are slowing down and killing churches at a record rate. How do you deal with these people? Here's how Paul dealt with Elymas. Scripture in Acts 13:9-11 says Paul looked him directly in the eye and said, "You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? Now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time." I guess that would throw the pc crowd into a feeding frenzy. Blood in the water and here they come. In today's world Paul's pc type of message would sound like this. "Now, I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong, but I wanted to bring it to your attention." Paul would never say anything that needed to be said directly in a pc fashion, but that would be what we want to hear in today's world. I honestly believe that this is why many Christians do not study God's Word, because they don't want to hear the truth, or ala A Few Good Men, "you can't handle the truth! By the way, after Paul told Elymas he would be blind, guess what? Elymas was suddenly blind!! I don't know about you, but that makes me an even more focused believer after reading that fact. I am not alone, because the proconsul saw what happened and BELIEVED! Paul's boldness and total belief in the message of Christ and the power of God was well warranted. Don't get in the way of the Word of God!! BARRIER BLOWN UP!!
I had a guy threaten my life one time and in the threat I felt fear, but didn't say a word. I should have rebuked him and exposed him for who he was, Elymas. I didn't though, and thought the "Christian" thing to do was to take it and let his way of thinking be mine. MISTAKE!! We live to share the message of Jesus Christ, not the message of some seemingly devil filled church goer. There will always be people of influence, some good and some bad, but the influence that draws people away from accepting Jesus is EVIL. Call it what it is and blow up the barrier. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:16 "Be redeeming the time because the day is evil." Don' t give any time to those who would make themselves a barrier to the message of Christ and when they put themselves in the middle of your path call them out for what they are. Ambassadors of the devil and then move on. They have the barriers of evil intentions and it is a waste of time to listen to their evil words that only distract from the purpose of Christ.
The Pilgrimage continues....
David Warren
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