In
the book of Acts, Luke records a number of stories of men and women who obeyed
the gospel of Jesus Christ in the first century. In Acts 2, people from many
parts of the Roman Empire who came to the Passover feast in Jerusalem were
baptized after hearing the story of the life death and resurrection of the
Lord, 3000 people be exact (2:41). In Acts 8, Luke tells of citizens in the
city of Samaria who responded to the preaching of the kingdom. They had been
deceived by a man named Simon who was a con artist, but when they saw the
powerful miracles of Philip, these people were being baptized into Christ
(8:12). Even Simon himself was convinced of this message and obeyed the truth
(8:13). Following that, there is an account of a man from Ethiopia who was travelling
back home from Jerusalem and reading the Scriptures. He had travelled close to
900 miles to be in Jerusalem for the Passover feast. God arranged it so that
Philip would be on a road the Ethiopian was travelling on so that they could
meet and he could have the Scriptures fully explained to him. By the end of
that story we see this foreigner being baptized into Christ (8:38). This is the
pattern. It is what happened in the 1st`
century, and it is what must happen today.
Now,
if you will allow me, I'd like to briefly relay an account of a recent
conversion of a man from Canada. The interesting element of the story is the
distance he travelled in order to complete his study the gospel and be baptized
into Christ. Dennis Allan, who lives in Brazil, relayed this story to a number
of us by facebook:
Ever wonder how the Lord gets people
like the Ethiopian eunuch in touch with someone to teach them? Here's an
interesting one: A man named Pedro, after studying a lot of material on our
website (estudosdabiblia.net), sent us an e-mail with some good Bible questions
and commented that he already understood his need to be baptized. He gave his
phone number, which was not formatted the way Brazilian numbers usually are, so
I did my best to decipher it and passed the contact along to brethren near
where I thought he lived (Porto Alegre). Tiago, a faithful Christian there,
began corresponding with Pedro about 6 weeks ago. Result: Although Pedro is not
from Porto Alegre, he made a trip there, coinciding with studies the brethren
had scheduled with Gary Fisher over this past weekend. Pedro has now been
immersed for the forgiveness of his sins and is spending time with brethren
there and making plans to travel to spend time with others. By the way, his
formatting of the phone number was correct; I misinterpreted it. He was not
writing from Porto Alegre, but from Canada, and visited his home country of
Brazil to obey the gospel. May God be praised for enabling those who seek to
find!
As
I understand it, Pedro, who lives in Montreal Canada, is deciding to leave his
job (a quite lucrative one at that) and make his residence in Porto Alegre. He
is also flying his parents and sister down so that they can hear the gospel as
well. Monica said it reminded her of the parable of the pearl of great price. "The kingdom of heaven is like a
merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he
went and sold all that he had, and bought it" Mt. 13:45-46.
The
lessons: First, when people are genuinely seeking the Truth, they will go to
remarkable lengths to find the answers. Secondly, God has put each of us in a
place where those hearts can find help if they are truly searching. Thirdly, it
is still true today that "the eyes
of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support
those whose heart is completely His. " (2 Chronicles 16:9). Let's give
God the praise for His kingdoms growth and be diligent to do our part in
seeking the lost.
By the way, as the crow
flies, the distance from Montreal Canada to the city of Porto Alegre, which is
in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil South America is 5383 miles,
Mike