Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.
Just one further thought on God being among His people:
Doctor J. Sidlow Baxter, in volume 6 of ‘Explore the Book’ (p.45), refers to Acts 5;12-16, and says that the early church had been given the power both to attract and repel:
The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
He writes:
‘That holy band had the power to create fear…Most people today think that the only power needed by the churches is the power to attract. They are wrong. The local church needs also the power to repel – to repel the hypocritical fraterniser, the worldly compromiser, the intriguing insinuator. Oh, the curse of the ”mixed multitude” in our churches, whose appetite is for the leeks and garlics of Egypt! In that first church the Spirit-charged atmosphere was was life to holiness and death to pretence.’
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