Port St. Lucie Church of Christ  Articles

The Unmistakable Hand of God Acts 16:6-10

Intro: God’s hand for man has been written “in the sand” and man has been too blind to see it! Understanding the history of man one sees God in all its glory displayed un-noticed by the erudite of the day. Read, It’s the little Things.” Have you ever questioned WHY the Holy Spirit did not allow Paul to go into Asia?(Bithynia) Why did He call them into Europe? (Macedonia) This is not a history lesson, this is a Bible study! Was this by chance? Was it God’s providential hand at work, unseen by those “who are blind and cannot see afar off.”? Or was it the plan of God of reaching the world with the Gospel?

EAST TO WEST it has always been so, the movement of the Gospel has been east to west. Only in Europe did the message of Christ reach both body and soul, change man entirely. It is likewise interesting that the priest of God when entering into the Holy of Holies traveled east to west. Was it not a prophecy of Christ? Matt 24:27

God had prepared Europe in many ways to send revival to what was then the “rest of mankind”! Europe had the un-matched zeal to explore, the religious impetus that DROVE men from its shores, and the lack of food and land! Too, look at the nearness of the continents in the North of western Europe versus the vastness apart of the Southern hemisphere, the vast Pacific Ocean separated China from any neighbor to the west!! They now tell us Leif Ericson was in Canada in the 11^th century!! The Bering Strait (from Russia to Alaska) did not produce the revival the ships from Europe produced!!

Europe may have launched the “gospel ship” to this “land of the free”, but it is now America that sends the gospel EVERYWHERE!! The American Indian deserved the “gospel” of Christ preached to them. It is my contention that the invasion of Iraq was God’s sending the gospel of Christ to the Muslim world of ignorance. Can we not see the “fingerprints of the Almighty”? It was Europe that cleansed its shores of the “finest humanity ever produced” in the 14^th-through the 19^th centuries, could it not be that the attack of the Muslims on 9/11 be the destruction of their death-hold on its enslaved masses?? The “gospel” has not been preached there freely since before the 6^th century, AD.

GEOGRAPHY what does it mean, why is this the name given that describes physical structure of the Earth? Insight into the purposes of God just might reveal WHY things are as they are, today!!

Geography is a word from two Greek words which mean “to write on the Earth”. Do you know anyone big enough to autograph this planet but God?? Can we not hear God cry out; “can you not see My Hand-written plan?”

Every ocean, river, sea, desert, island, and continent is just where He wanted them and His purpose is to SAVE MANKIND. Is it not “near-sighted” of us when we do not see “His fingerprints all around us”?

The rugged terrain, cold weather, the demand for shelter coupled with the impossibility of living outside year-round, the intervention of the sea by the Great Lakes, the demand for every waking moment to be useful makes the people in the North far more resourceful than the laid-back, get-it-done-tomorrow attitude of the South.

Truly no blind force gave our Earth the well adapted means to perform what our Lord told His apostles on that Judean mountain---“Go into all the world “ planned from the beginning of time, this world is but another tool of God to insure the glory of His Son!! ”Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” Acts 15:18