As some of you may know, I am daily reading through Scripture in its order. Today’s devotion included Acts 4:23-37. The focus of this post is Acts 4: 28: “to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” This is another reference to God’s sovereignty.
However, like the prior post, first, I am going to take a one paragraph side trip. The Bible is filled with references to the fact that God created the heaven and the earth. The creation account is not limited to Genesis 1. In the Scripture that I read today, it contained the following verse. “And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM,” Acts 4:24. And, just one verse later, we read: “who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, ‘WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE, AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS?” Acts 4:25. This Acts 4:25 makes me think of people who so rage about creation and the glory that it gives God that they devise and promote a futile evolution theory.
Now, back to the main message of this Scripture. We are reminded here that the wonderful activities of the early church were the result of work of the Holy Spirit in the early church. Acts 4:31 tells us: “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
But yet, there is described another cause of these activities as described in Acts 4: 28: “to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Although that verse specifically and directly refers to the prior verse, Acts 4:27: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,”, Acts 4:28 also generally and indirectly refers to God’s sovereignty in causing (predestining and doing) all of His work including, but not limited to the wonderful activities that we read in the following Acts 4:31-37 in which there was unity in the congregation and in which believers spoke the word of God with boldness and shared their possessions.
In conclusion, the cause of the wonderful activities of the early church was directly and immediately caused by the Holy Spirit. But, we should also note that an additional cause of these activities is the sovereignty of God described in Acts 4: 28: “to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Amen.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 