Last night we hosted our second Skeptics Bible study. And for the 2nd week in a row, no one showed up. People cancelled at the last minute or weren't reachable right beforehand to confirm their coming. My teammate O and I sat there for a while, feeling pretty discouraged. We spent a while praying and asking God if He wanted us to do something different. We were pretty honest with Him about how hard it is to see this happen a second week in a row. Having a skeptics Bible study just seems like a logical step in sharing the good news of Jesus with our friends, in an environment where it's not rushed, there's little distraction, and where others are there to also talk and disagree and be honest. We're here. We want to see people come to know the amazing message of the Gospel. We want to be used for His name's sake. And He tells us that we just need faith the size of a mustard seed, and I told God last night that I think we have that. So why isn't He bringing in people? I know that He's all-powerful, and that He's able to overhaul and change people's apathetic and cynical hearts, so why aren't we seeing Him doing that more?
Then this morning, I was reminded that when Jesus went to the cross and died, it probably looked pretty foolish and senseless to a lot of people who were there. And some of His followers must have felt pretty stupid right after He died, before He showed up on the road to Emmaus, even though He promised that He'd rise from the dead. Cleopas, one of the travellers, even asked the "stranger" if He was completely unaware of what had been happening in Jerusalem in the last 3 days.
And when Stephen was crying out "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God", the Jews covered their ears and ran towards him, and drove him out of the city, stoning him. At the time, his martyrdom probably didn't make sense to a lot of people around him, including Saul. And to have stones thrown at you after you've proclaimed so thoroughly that the giving of the law through Moses to the Jews was the sign of the covenant, and that Jesus was the seal of the covevant, I would imagine must have been discouraging. And even from a physical war perspective, when the allied troops landed on the shores of Normandy on D Day, and they were completely massacred and saw their comrades bodies strewn in the ocean, they had no idea that they were on the brink of overriding the enemy. God's kingdom is everlasting. Satan's kingdom is crumbling. He is on the move. And we are called to stand firm and steadfast and continue proclaiming His truth, whether people come to our study or not. We have no idea what is just around the corner, but we do have a Living Hope, whose name is Jesus, and He has promised that He will come back again, in triumph!