Christianity Vs Communism

There must be something new up here, huh? Well, there is something that we can consider here before we open up to the Book of Acts. Jesus is talking here to the scribes and the Pharisees and he says, because you build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous. You know, there were men like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the prophets and they had tombs there.

You know, the Jews would go down to, let's go visit and honor the tomb of Jeremiah or the tomb of Isaiah or the tomb of some of these prophets. And they thought they were great men, great men. But then the Lord says, and they say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

In other words, somehow, it's off in the distance, way back there a thousand years ago, and somehow me, I would have never done that. I mean, I can't, I can't understand why the Jews back then did that. We love these people.

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that you are the children of them which killed the prophets. You know, if something is off in the distance, whether it's time or space, we tend to glorify it. You know, those prophets back there, they were wonderful men.

We honor them, they're glorious men, but you bring them up and put them in my face and I have to deal with them? Those people over in Afghanistan, they're so far away, they're so far removed from us, and give them boldness, take that fear away. Yes, let them stand up for Jesus in the midst of being martyred. Then you bring that situation to us.

And it's distance, whether time or space. We can sit back at a distance and say, oh, those are great people. They're doing the right thing, standing for Jesus and standing up against opposition.

But then when that comes to us, it's like, oh, no, no, no, we don't want to do that. We want to run. We want to hide.

And so we need to bring it down to us locally. If we really want to have an impact, our local ministry here, and do we love John the Baptist? Let's bring his words to us locally. Do we love the Lord Jesus? You know, many people say they love Jesus.

Oh, Jesus. It's just when their word, his word comes face to face with their personal day-to-day life. They say, nothing new anyway.

I want to go my own way. And so let's make sure that everything is not put off into a distance. Let's allow God to bring things into our bosom and see how we respond to the very same things that we're glorifying others for in other places in the world and in other times in the world.

So let's turn to Acts chapter 2 because this is another time. It's 2,000 years ago. And, you know, we do this.

We read these passages and we say, oh, what a great church. And I've heard people say, I would have loved to live that same church. No, you wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't. Oh, yes, yes, it's 2,000 years ago. And what a glorious church.

And the things that were happening, yes, people were getting killed. People were getting beaten. People were getting put in prison.

And homes were being wrecked. And Saul was making havoc in the church, entering into houses, hailing men and women, and casting them into prison. Oh, I don't like that.

As long as I can keep it all 2,000 years ago at a distance, I'm fine with it. Yeah, and, you know, we can sit in church later. Our church isn't like the early church.

You know, we need more of this. But you bring these things right through the doorstep. And you'll find out if you really want to be a part of the early church.

So as you go through here, as you go through the book of Acts, you know, Afghanistan is going to be brought right to us. Right to us. You know, Peter, if you say any more about Jesus, you're going to prison.

I'm going to beat you. I'm going to beat you good. And people are getting beaten over there right now because they're talking about Jesus.

Same thing. So let's bring the New Testament church into our day and not fail in the same way that the Jews did. And, oh, yes, we glorify 2,000 years ago those prophets.

Boy, they were good preachers. They stood for the truth. If I was getting back there, I'd have done the same thing and went to prison and ate bread and water.

No, you wouldn't. You'd have run, hid, denied Jesus. So anyway, let's turn here to Acts, chapter number 2. I'm going to start reading here.

I'm going to put my markers on. I'm going to start at verse number 43 today. We're moving down through here.

I just thought by way of introduction this morning that people are looking back for examples. They're looking back to the Moravians, 1500s, 1600s. They're looking back to the Anabaptists, 1700s.

They're looking back to the Methodists, 1800s, early 1900s. They're looking back for some sort of a pattern that we can follow our church after. And I don't know why we just don't look back to the early church example.

I mean, we're reading about the Moravians. We're reading about the Anabaptists. We're reading about the church 500 years ago.

But here's a testimony. It's infallible. History is fallible.

Here is an infallible testimony of what a pure church is. I mean, this is a church that is filled with the Holy Ghost. This is the inception of the church.

This is the purest sense of church life, what it is. We're learning it right here. So let's do our best to look back and accept what we're hearing, what we're seeing.

Last time we talked about the four pillars of church life. The first one was they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine. And that's something that we as a church need to make sure that we want to continue, not only in learning the doctrine of Jesus Christ, who He passed it down to the Apostles, and they passed it down to the first generation, but not only to learn it, but also to do it, to make it a part of life.

And the idea of obedience and living a Christ-like holy life, they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine. There wasn't this attitude of, well, I can be a Christian and just kind of do whatever I want, just kind of go through life and whatever I want. Eh, if I like that thing that Jesus said, I'll do it.

But if I don't, I won't, and I'm just a Christian. It won't fly in the early church. These people were continuing steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine.

As a matter of fact, they didn't even have one, but if they had a Bible like this, they'd be all over the place. You know, they loved the Word and wanted to obey it. They continued in fellowship steadfastly.

They were together. They broke bread together. They ate together.

They loved fellowship. And you find as people's hearts begin to wane from the truth, they forsake the assembling of themselves together. And that's what we're encouraged not to do, to forsake the assembling.

And so fellowship. People who have a heart that's in the right place love to be around God's people. And if your heart wants to be out in the world and fellowship with those who are lost, then that tells you what you are.

I mean, birds of a feather flock together. And there is a thing called the kindred spirit. And I'm looking to fellowship with people who have the Spirit of God in them.

I want to be around them. I told you the illustration last time about my buddies in high school were all golf buddies. Why is that? Because we had a kindred spirit.

We loved to play golf. It was our affection. And so all my buddies were golf buddies.

Who are your buddies? Tell us a lot about who you like, what you like. Kindred spirit. Next, they broke bread together.

Their nourishment. Not only physical bread, but they broke bread. Break thou the bread of life.

You know, Jesus broke bread. He spoke truth. And he broke bread.

And they went house to house eating and sharing the Word of God. And feeding each other spiritually and physically. And then they were together to pray.

Prayers of God's people praying together. And I liken these four to what a sheep is by nature. A sheep by nature listens for the voice of his shepherd.

They continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine. A sheep by nature is gregarious. I think that's the word.

They love to be in flocks. You don't find sheep one over here and one over here and one over there. They're an animal that loves to be together.

And sheep like to graze. They like to eat. And so the breaking of bread and then finally the bleeding of the sheep.

When they have a need, they bleed. They cry out to their shepherd. And so if you're a sheep, there's four things in your life.

It's basically the foundation of your whole life. You listen for your shepherd. You stay in the flock.

You eat. You graze. And then you have a need, you bleed.

You lift up your voice to your shepherd. And so that's a sheep's life right there. So spiritually speaking, that's our life.

So we're following this here. And if you want to be a good early church member, you're going to be, number one, the Spirit of God on you. You're going to be prophesying.

You're going to be communicating the Word of God. We learned that in Acts Chapter 2 there. And you're also going to be continuing in the Apostles' Doctrine fellowship, breaking of bread in prayer.

So I kind of asked you last week, how's it coming? How's it coming in life, in your spiritual life? Do you love the Word? Do you love fellowship? Do you love breaking bread together with God's people in prayer, praying together? I shared this last time. It's good enough to repeat it. Some of you weren't here last time, but I don't think I shared it quite accurately.

But I remember when I was in the Baptist church, they'd say something like this. The popularity of the church is seen by the crowd on Sunday morning. We must not be very popular here.

The popularity of the preacher is seen by the crowd that comes on Sunday night. Now, in my Baptist setting, you had a Sunday morning service, a Sunday night service, and a Wednesday night service. So the popularity of the church was Sunday morning.

The popularity of the preacher was seen in the crowd that came on Sunday night. And the popularity of Jesus was Wednesday night. That's the prayer.

Find out how popular the Lord is when you check the crowd on Wednesday night, the prayer crowd. So that's a good way to tell a temperature of a church. And in our Baptist church, we had a full crowd on Sunday morning.

Wednesday night, it was real sparse. So let's get here to Acts again in Acts chapter 2. I could spend a lot of time here. There's so much in here.

But I'd like to take verse 43 down to verse 47 and continue here in God's testimony of the early church. Verse 43, it says, And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Let's pray and then we're going to look at these verses here.

Heavenly Father, You promised us in the word of the Lord that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image. As we behold the truth of Your Word, meditate upon it, love it, consider it, that it will change us into the image of Your Son. And so Lord, as we look at these verses this morning, we pray that that would come to pass in our hearts, that we could be changed, Lord, not just challenged, but changed into the image of what Your Word represents here.

Lord, we pray for those that are not with us. They might also receive edification and comfort today. Bless each one of us today as we open up our ears and hearts to the Word of God.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, so we're going to look at this example here of the early church. It says here in verse 43 that fear came upon every soul.

You think about that for a minute. In this setting, when the Spirit of God is amongst the people, there was the fear of God upon, it says, every soul. Everybody was a little bit shaken, a little bit trembling, because they know that God is amongst them.

God is the burning bush, and He is amongst His people. So when God is amongst people, they begin to fear and to tremble. And I mean that in a good way.

They have a reverent fear. God is in the midst of His people. And I believe that when they saw the supernatural work of the Lord, they saw God changing lives, they saw the grace of God in individuals, and they were also seeing here in verse 43 many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

They touched the supernatural. And I'll tell you what, what causes people to tremble before God is the supernatural. The supernatural is revealed.

And if you go through the Bible, you'll find that when God does a supernatural work, it causes people to tremble and to fear. You know, we can get involved in life and all the natural world, and we begin to lose our fear of God. But all of a sudden, something supernatural like this is the hand of God, it's obvious, whoa, God is here.

We better get a little bit more reverence. You know, if God would do miracles in our midst, it would cause people's hearts to quicken with fear. The Lord is amongst us.

And that is what's happening here in the early church. Many wonders and signs are being done. You know, people are getting converted.

They're coming out of wickedness, and God is manifesting His power in the lives of people. And other people are looking at this and saying, whoa, hey, tread lightly. God's around.

You can see His fingerprints everywhere. And of course, we need that, don't we? Amen. We need to know that the Lord is near.

I'm going to show you a good example of this. It's not very far. You don't have to turn.

But in Acts 5, turn over there with me to Acts 5, a great example of this. I'm not going to read the whole story. This is Ananias and Sapphira.

You know, they were deceivers. We'll get to this story later on in a few weeks. But in Acts 5, starting in verse number 5, Peter approaches Ananias and Sapphira, and it says, And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost.

And great fear came on all them that heard these things. You didn't have to be there to see it. You just heard.

People started talking about, hey, Ananias and Sapphira, I mean, they deceived Peter and the apostles, and they kept back part of the land. They said that they sold it and gave everything, and he just fell down dead. I mean, Peter tells them, why have you lied to the Holy Ghost? I mean, this guy just fell down dead.

No, are you serious? Yeah, he just died right there. Verse 6, And the young man arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.

And Peter answered and said unto her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then she fell down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost.

Can you imagine that sight? The body just collapsing. And the young man came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her with her husband. And great fear came upon all the church.

It wasn't the unbelievers. I'm sure they were fearful. It goes on to say, No man does join himself to this group.

But these people saw the power of God. As great fear came upon the church. You know, we need some of that, don't we? And just the fear of God.

But you know, when you see the supernatural, you see the footprints and the fingerprints of the Lord in the place. And we need to pray, and we need to seek God, and we need to cry out to God that we need His presence here. Would you agree with that? We need the presence of the Lord here, in a much more powerful way.

So the presence of God here is so real that people who are in sin, people who are living a life of hypocrisy, people who are living a life of deceit, like Ananias and Sapphira, they stay away from these folks. They know that God is there. If you jump down to verse 13 here of the story, it says, And the rest, no man joined himself to them, but the people magnified them.

And so the unbelievers stood outside and said, I'm not going to go close to that church group over there, because God is in their midst, and I am a willful sinner, and if I get too close to them, I may die. So people didn't join. And I think it's a good thing to have a church where people just say, I don't know if I want to be a part of that group.

You know, it's not a good thing when just any old sinner can come in here and just do whatever they want, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That means we're missing the presence of God. So that's the testimony of the early church, and I think we ought to have that same testimony.

And there's many of these testimonies. I just thought of a few of them. I could have given you many, but listen to this testimony in Luke chapter number 7 here.

Let me read to you. Well, maybe it's Luke chapter 6 or Luke 8. Here's the story of the maniac of Gadara. In Luke chapter 8 verse 33, and I'm not going to read this whole story either.

It says, Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it in the city and in the country. This is a supernatural event.

Then they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus and found the man out of whom the devils departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in His right mind. And you'd think they'd be, oh, this is great. And they were afraid.

Afraid. Whoa. I know this guy.

I've seen him in the tombs for years. Look at this. This is God.

Whoa. We better get out of here. Sinners, get out.

I don't want to be around. If God's here, I'm going to move. And so that was going on in the early church, and that's something that is good.

We ought to have the fear of God. Sinners ought not to like being here. If you're a sinner here this morning and you love this present world and you love your sin, you're going to find in your heart you don't want to be here.

You'd rather be somewhere else. You don't want to be where the Lord's name is lifted up and the Lord's presence is. So it's good for a church.

It's good for the people of God. There'd be some fear amongst God's people and fearing the Lord and the presence of the Lord. So verse 43 says, And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

Now, these are things that are happening, miraculous things that are happening, and it's a testimony of the presence of God. And I would like to see more of those things. I've seen some of those things in my own personal life, and I know the effect it has.

My wife and I, we've experienced some of these things, and it has an effect. It even has an effect on the children when they see a devil cast out of an individual and they see and know a person who's truly been born of the Spirit and has been delivered. Just the reality of the spiritual world.

We were down in Columbus this weekend. We had our first meal down there at the apartment and just cooked. Irvin and I and David and Chris took our burger cooker and set up a table and some chairs outside the apartment and started to eat, and we just started to invite people.

I think we served 24, 25 people who came. I came home and I was telling Emily a little bit about what was going on and the darkness and what people were saying. I've never seen so many spiritual people.

They're always just praising God and thanking you and it's wonderful you're here. Thank God. Praise God.

They're in the spiritual realm, in the dark side, but they recognize it. And you know, we didn't even tell them. Some of them came and said, You're a church people.

You're a Christian. And they recognized that. I was talking to Emily a little bit about that yesterday, the day before.

She mentioned to me one time that we had gone down to the hockey game and done some preaching and she was with another girl or two and they were walking along the street and there was a lady that was very, very troubled and distressed sitting on the sidewalk on a step. And as they walked up and approached her, just walking towards her, she looked up and kind of with a grimacing look said, Welcome to the dark side. Like these people are spiritual in a sense.

They know the dark side. They know what a demon is. They know and they deal with them on a regular basis.

So oftentimes the church, we're not in the spiritual realm. We're just in the physical realm. So these people that we minister to and talk to and fed, many of them are demonic.

Many of them are on the dark side. And so here, spiritual things are happening. Wonders and signs are done by the apostles.

And I know there's a lot of people who have struggles with wonders and signs. And here's how I understand it and view it. You know, Jesus came first.

He's the foundation of everything. He is the fullness of God in a human body. The fullness of the Godhead bodily.

And He exemplified everything. Everything that God has. All the miracles.

All the signs. I mean, He did it all. And then He anointed and blessed twelve.

And they went out. And those twelve represented the entirety of the Godhead. And those twelve, not one person did it all, but twelve then went out and did wonderful signs and wonders.

And I think they were especially anointed by the Lord. But then those twelve laid their hands on and blessed others. And it spread and spread and spread and spread and spread.

Further and further and further. And so now we see these things, the fullness of the Lord Jesus in His body. All God's gifts are spread out amongst all of us.

And so these signs and wonders done by the apostles were a testimony of the presence of God and people were fearful. And it's a good fear. You know what I mean when I say fear.

Reverence. And you fear God. You fear sin.

You fear doing wrong. I want you to notice verse 44 and 45. I want to spend a little time on these.

It says, And all that believed were together, these are the children of God, and had all things common. And they sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. They had all things common.

You see this word common often. And it's the base for the word communion. And I'll also say this, it's the base word for the word communism.

We'll talk about that here in a minute. Communism. But common.

Now I didn't understand what that word meant when I was 19, 20 years old, but I went to college, Ohio University, a secular school, and I got into a dorm room and they had at the bottom of the dorm on the first floor, the common. The common. I didn't know what that meant back then, it just was called the common.

So I went, well, I had my own dorm room up here and there were many people who had dorm rooms, but down at the bottom floor was a place where everyone could take part in it. It was called the common. It had a TV room, it had a pay phone, it had chairs and couches, and it's a big area where you're free.

If you're in this dormitory, you can come down here. It's common to all. They called it the common.

Or they called it the common. So the Scripture says here they had all things common. Now some people take that to an extreme and they say, well, nobody owned anything.

Nobody owned anything. They just sold everything and put it on a big pile and distribution was made from that. I do not think that that's what the Bible teaches here.

If you look over to Acts chapter 4 in Acts chapter 4 verse 32, this word is mentioned again and it's explained here in verse 32. It says, And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. Notice this, Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common.

And notice the attitude of the heart. Nothing that I have is mine to own. If you need it, you can use it.

If you need it, you can have it. Now they still had ownership, but they had a sharing spirit. And they basically said, if it's mine, you've heard the saying, what's mine is yours.

If you need it, we'll use it common. All things common. If you need a tractor, use my tractor.

If you need a hammer, here's my hammer, use it. If you need, I needed a van this last week to go to the wedding. I said, Irving, can I use your van? Use it.

And we get out there and Irving wasn't going to go to the wedding and then he calls me and says, hey, we're going to go to the wedding now. Can we use your van to come to the wedding? Use it. So we have all things common.

That's a good thing for a church to have all things common. There was also a desire to sell excess to help the needy. If you look at Acts 4 here in verse 34, neither was there any of them that lacked for as many as were possessors of lands, notice the plural, and houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet.

So the Spirit of God is working and there's this desire for breaking away from material possessions and a desire for equality. Equality. And I believe God's Spirit wants to work that in this church here, is equality.

And that doesn't mean that, okay, I'm going to say, everybody sell everything you have, bring all your money to me and I'm going to divide it up equally. No. It just means that we can keep our possessions, but when you see someone who has need, you sell your excess and provide for the needs of those that are struggling.

And so they were selling their extra house. Maybe someone had two houses or had extra land. They were selling it and bringing it for those who had need.

And I'm very much in agreement with equality. I believe it's God's heart for there to be equality amongst God's people. In 2 Corinthians 8, he mentions this word equality.

Paul does. He says, but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may be a supply to their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may be an equality. As it is written, he that hath gathered much hath nothing over and he that hath gathered little had no lack.

It's going back to the Old Testament story of the manna from heaven. So it's like Paul says, the church at Corinth, you're rich. You've got plenty of money.

The Jewish people over here are struggling. They're in poverty. So you take this extra you have and send it to them because someday you're going to be in poverty and they're going to be rich and they're going to take their riches and send them to you.

And I want my people to supply each other's needs that there would be an equality. And so this was working in the early church. And I believe any church where the Spirit of God is, people start to lose the grasp on possession.

It's not my house, don't worry about it. It's not my car, don't worry about it. It's not my tractor, don't worry about it.

They start to lose their selfish desire to keep their things and they begin to lose that materialism. And they start to say, hey, this brotherhood doesn't have much. Let's just help him.

Let's bring him up to an equality. And this passage Paul talks about here, the Old Testament story, and I won't go back and read it for the sake of time, but when the manna came down from heaven and God provided for the people in Israel, he said, everybody go out and get an ulmer per person. An ulmer.

I don't know what an ulmer is, but it's enough for one person for one day. And so you went out, every person got an ulmer. The head of the family, if he had ten kids at home, he got ten, and himself or his wife, twelve ulmers.

The Bible says when they came back and they looked at it, it worked out and God did a miracle that if you needed twelve, that's how many you had. And maybe you thought you got a little extra, but you only had twelve when you got home. And the one who didn't gather that much, when he got home he had more, which brought him up to an ulmer.

And so God was teaching them, some of you are out there, you're really doing good, you're really gathering a whole lot, you come back, and well you only have enough just to feed one person. And by the way, you only had one ulmer per person. It wasn't Joe over here eats two or three ulmers and Sally over here only gets a half of an ulmer.

In other words, it wasn't the big heavyset guy who needs a lot of food and the little tiny one who didn't need much. Everybody got the same amount of food. That's interesting, isn't it? And something else you learn from that story is that when the bread came down, they got their food for the day, but if they tried to hoard it and save it till tomorrow, does anybody know what happened when they woke up? What was the bread looking like when they woke up? Rot and worm.

And there was the Lord saying, don't hoard, you have to save, you have to be rich. And so this idea of equality, and I would encourage all of you, some of you who have much, we can be a blessing to some who don't have. And I don't think some of you who don't have should say, hey you, give me.

I think if God's Spirit is working in our hearts, we ought to reach out and have compassion. And there ought to be a sense of equality. That's the early church example.

Now I want to spend a little time here on communism, and this is a political thing, in just a few moments, just talk about this, because there is some applications throughout Christianity that deals with either communism or Christianity. You know, many politicians I've seen through the years will use the Bible to get people to give to the government, or this idea of, well, communism and socialism must be good, because the Bible says we're supposed to have an equality. And so Joe Biden says, everybody, you rich people, I'm going to take your money in taxes, we're going to give it to the poor, we're going to have a distribution of wealth.

And they justify it by saying, the Bible says equality. So some people who are simple just, oh yeah, I guess that's right, what the Bible says. So, I guess communism is a good thing, because communism promotes equality.

There are some similarities between communism and Christianity. Both communism and Christianity encourage equality. But here's the difference, and this is a principle throughout all of Christianity.

Communism is a top-down forced. We've got someone who's living in Russia. Communism is a top-down forced equality.

Whereas Christianity is a bottom-up voluntary equality. In other words, Christianity is God working in us to will and do of His good pleasure. There is no force here in the book of Acts.

People are just being led by the Spirit of God. I want to bless my brother, and it's coming from the generosity of my own heart being motivated by the Spirit of God. I'm going to sell my possessions and give.

That's Christianity. Communism says, I'm the president or I'm the leader, and you're rich, I'm going to take it from you, force you to give it up. You see, communism and socialism are forced from the top down, from the authorities, from government.

Christianity is from the bottom up. It is a free will offering. It is generated by the Spirit of God.

And if you look here in the book of Acts, there is no force at all here in Acts 2. It says, And all that believed, verse 44, were together, had all things common and sold their possessions as goods, and pardoned them to all men as every man had need. This is a voluntarily God's Spirit working in the hearts of people to say, I want to give to the glory of God. And so communism is that which is forced upon men.

It's not anything people want to do. It's what you have to do. It's government authority.

And you know what happens if you know government. And by the way, church life is this way too. When men get their hands on the money and the control and they force people to give, what happens to that money? Is it used wisely? No, it's not.

All over the world, men who are in control get to live rich and lavish lives while everybody else is impoverished because the human heart is corrupt. And so God knows that if you have an equality and you let man rule over that equality, you're going to have a mess called communism. It's called socialism.

But if the Holy Ghost decides where the money goes and generates the motivation, it's a good thing. God's in control of it. And you know what happens? In communism, people begin to look to the government for their needs.

But in Christianity, people look to God. And I can guarantee you that the people who were poor and received from those who were rich, they said, glory to God! And who is glorified in it? The Lord. Something else.

Communism is man-centered. It is not God-centered. And here's one of the dangers that we face with regards to church life.

Church is moving in that direction today. We want church life to be a Spirit-led church life where it's coming from the bottom up that people are being motivated to give. They're not having their arms twisted.

They're not being forced by threat. By the way, Brother Cleat was sharing here about a couple of Kabbalah, but it's all force. It's all threat.

It's all from the top down. It's be a Muslim or else. And that's the awful thing about most man-made religions are top down.

Hierarchy, authority structure, imposing like Jesus said, they make you carry heavy burdens, but they will not lift with their finger one little bit of it. It's always top down. A bottom up church or Christianity is it's God which works in you both to will and do of His good pleasure.

And you see this here in the book of Acts. But churches sometimes move out of that into forced obedience and they begin to lord over God's people. And that kind of worship is all vain.

You remember in the book of Corinthians where Paul said, I want you to be a giver, but I don't want you to give out of necessity nor of murmuring or grumbling. I want you to give cheerfully. I want you to have a heart.

Just give. Be a hilarious giver. And so top down Christianity is not what you want.

You want a bottom up Christianity. You want to be led of the Spirit of God. And here the early church is not communistic.

They have all things common, but it's being generated by the Holy Ghost within them. And the apostles are not up there saying, alright you people, you better listen to us. You need to give so much, you need to sell this, or else you're in trouble with the elders.

Well, that's a top down attitude. Remember what Jesus said, don't be like the Gentiles out there, their authorities and the whole nine yards, but you be totally different. You come from the bottom up.

You be a servant and an example. So the giving here is being motivated by the Holy Spirit. It was a free will offering and it brought glory to God.

And it seems like many of them sold their extras. The rich did. And they gave it here to the poor.

And they didn't have, and I know some groups, I know we have a family that comes and visits here once in a while, they were a part of a group that maybe felt like you had any possessions, that's wrong to have any possessions. I don't believe the Bible teaches that. As a matter of fact, just look over here to Acts chapter 5 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

Ananias and Sapphira evidently told or came with their offering and they wanted to let everyone know that they gave everything they got from the sale of their house. When in reality, they concocted this idea that we'll say that we did, we'll keep back part of it. Maybe you have.

And notice here in Acts 5, verse 4, what Peter says to this couple. He says this, while it remained, was it not thine own? Okay, so here you've got it. Listen, Peter says, when you were in the house, you were living in this house or whatever, it was an extra house that you had.

It was your own. You had possessions. You could have kept it.

And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? I mean, after you sold it, you could have kept the money. There was no force. You didn't have to give it.

Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? So you notice there's no force there. Like Peter said, you didn't have to sell it. You didn't even have to give us the money.

You could have kept the money. What's the big deal? You lie. You made yourself to be a generous giver of it all when you actually only gave portion.

And that was the reason why they were killed. Deceivers. So the Holy Spirit is generating.

In the early church, and we'd love to see the Holy Spirit generate these things in our hearts. He generates prophecy. I'll pour my spirit upon all flesh and they'll prophesy.

He generates this continuing desire to follow the Apostles' doctrine. He generates fellowship. He generates the breaking of bread.

He is generating prayer. He is generating the selling of good and equality. All these things are the work of God.

And if you allow God to fill your heart and you'll surrender to Him like we sang this morning all to Jesus, I surrender, these things will begin to be worked out in all of our hearts. And if everybody is filled with the Spirit and we're having these things worked out, we'll have a wonderful church! Amen? Wonderful! I won't have to make any rules, regulations, or laws and force you into things. You'll just be happy to do it! Because you're right with God.

And your heart is detached from this world. So that's the kind of Christianity we need to promote from the bottom up. Now let's go on here in Acts because there's another word.

I know there's a lot of things we could talk about here, but we're running out of time. But I'd like to look here at verse 46. The word common is used twice here and this word daily is used three times.

Verse 46 says, Now somewhere in the last 2,000 years, and I don't know church history that well, but somewhere in the last 2,000 years, Christianity moved from a daily religion to a Sunday religion. And I don't know how it happened, but it's not a good thing. But in the early church, Christianity was a daily activity.

It says here, Now keep in mind that the Jewish religion had a daily custom. Part of their lifestyle was the daily hour of prayer. It's mentioned here in chapter 3, verse 1. Verse 1 says, So think about this.

Every day, this man is being carried by his parents or his nephews or whatever, and they lay him daily at the gate of the temple. Why do they do that? Because people are coming daily. They're daily coming to the temple.

It's a part of the Jewish life. It's a culture. Daily prayer.

There's an hour of prayer. And so here's a man begging with a can, begging daily. People are coming every day.

Now let me ask you this. If we had a poor beggar and we laid him here at our gate, here in front of the door, he'd sit there on Monday. Ain't nobody coming.

Ain't nobody here. Tuesday. I don't know why we're dropping me off here because nobody comes.

I see Valerie coming. Everyone's starting to claim the church. But nobody comes here on a regular basis.

Sunday. Oh, Sunday's the day. We've got a lot of people coming on Sunday and I can give a little money on Sunday.

So this man here is being laid daily at the gate of the temple. That means that people are coming every day into the temple. It says for the hour of prayer being the ninth hour.

I've been working in Columbus. Brother Cleet knows this probably. Down in Columbus, in the Muslim area.

And however they do it, call goes out. Oftentimes around noon. Time for the prayer.

Muslim prayer. You know, that's one of the things on a college campus. I talk to Muslims.

Listen, we Muslims pray every day. You people don't pray. I pray five times a day.

We gather together every day as a group and pray. What's wrong with you people? You don't have Christianity. You don't have something true.

You don't even pray together. So I'm down there. John and I are down there a few years ago down at the one Morse Road.

They have that, I forget what it's called there, that shopping center with all these Muslim things. I'm back there going to the restroom and look over there and there's this big room off the side of the back and the restroom, beside the restroom. And what's that? Oh, just wait a little bit.

All these employees here in this building are going to come back here and pray. Our prayer's coming. And there's a place right there in that building for everybody to come and pray together.

And so in the early church, it was a daily religion. Of course, they had understood that because the Jewish system was built on a daily, it's a daily basis. Now, Saturday was a day of rest.

And you rested on the Sabbath. So you had this daily idea. It says they were meeting daily in the temple.

In the temple. They went someplace every day. Chapter 3, verse 1 here says they had an hour of prayer at the temple.

And so I don't know. I didn't live back then, but I'm assuming that probably 3 o'clock is what time it was. Maybe someone blew a ram's horn.

Well, I've got to leave. I've got to leave my painting job here. I'm halfway through this wall.

I've got to go down to the temple and pray. And all the brothers and sisters were meeting there at the temple. Well, the early church, when they got converted, says they went ahead and they met daily at the temple at Solomon's porch.

They were daily down at the temple. They had learned that from Judaism. I think one of the great tragedies of the church is it's not a daily religion.

I mean, Judaism was a daily religion. Muslims have a daily religion. And we have a one-day-a-week religion for some reason.

You don't find a one-day-a-week religion in the Bible. So it's daily. So this beggar is being laid daily.

I won't have you turn there, but there's a lot of places here I can read to you. I just looked up the word daily in the book of Acts. In Acts 5, verse 42, it says, "...and daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ." Daily in the temple and in every house.

In other words, they were going all over the place, but every day they were in the temple preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a daily religion. You know, most of us have this mindset as, well, I'm going to do my work and do all my things, and then Sunday I might do a little preaching.

Or I might get involved in a little ministry. Well, that's far different than the early church. They were involved on a day-to-day basis.

And they learned that from the Master. I want to read to you what it says here. This is about Jesus in Luke 19.

It says, "...and He taught daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy Him." So these apostles who are leading the early church, they have been living three years, and they've been watching Jesus every day go down to the temple and teach. Every day. As a matter of fact, when Judas came with a band of people to take Jesus, he told them, he said, why do you come with knives and staves and all this stuff? I mean, I sat daily in the temple teaching and you didn't come and get me.

What's the point? I was available daily. Acts 6, verse 1, "...and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration." In other words, widows were ministered to day by day. Of course, the bread, they didn't have refrigerators back then, and freezers, and all the stuff we have.

Sister so-and-so needs food today. And this sister needs food. And the widows, we need to have a daily ministration for the people.

So, if you go back to the early church, I don't know, we probably wouldn't want to join this church. It's too much obligation here. It's a daily thing.

Maybe we should just announce we're going to have daily prayers right here at three. And the beggar, he's going to sit outside with his can and hope to see a big crowd come. By the way, I'm just trying to teach what the Bible says.

I have no agendas here. You know? We don't have to fit into any boxes. I'm just trying to teach what it says.

These disciples walked around with the Lord Jesus and they taught daily. He taught daily, and they saw it. And they learned a lifestyle.

And so there was an hour of prayer that was daily. Well, let's just go ahead and read down through here and we'll close here. Maybe we'll come back to this passage next time.

But in verse 46, it says, they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Boy, there's a sermon right there. Singleness of heart.

They didn't have a double-minded heart. They were single. They had one purpose.

That purpose was to fulfill the Lord's will and to do His work. And all of them were single-minded. They had a singleness of purpose.

It wasn't like, what are we going to do today? Joe's going this way and Bob's going this way and we've got all kinds of visions. No, we need to do the Lord's will. Singleness.

Verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people. You know, I think the people looked at this group and said, wow, you know, apart from me having changed my entire life and lived as a Christian, I like these people. I like what's happening with them.

And that attraction, favor with all the people, led to the end of verse 47, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Now, I'll tell you what. And I just throw this out, but I know this is pretty far-fetched.

You can correct me when I'm done. But if you're out there in the public arena at the temple every day, you've got 12 apostles. They're preaching every day.

They're talking to people every day. The Gospel's going out every day, house to house, daily in the temple. They cease not to preach and to teach Jesus Christ.

If that much Gospel's going out every day and 12 men every day preaching, you're going to have people getting converted every day. Every day. And so daily.

I mean, if every man here spent four or five, six hours every day preaching the Gospel, can you imagine? We'd probably have people converted surely every week. And I know we're living in a very difficult time to see people converted. Back then it's the very beginning of God's work, but having people in the public arena preaching, teaching.

So this daily religion produced daily conversion. And so these people, the lost people or the Jewish people saw them prophesying, saw them selling their goods, saw them having joy in their hearts, saw signs and wonders. It's like, wow, this is a God thing.

We need to take part in it. It was attractive. So the Lord added to the church, daily such as should be saved.

And so I want to encourage us. I think we need to have more of a daily religion. And I think it's not a good testimony.

And we're not going to force, we're not going to have any rules. You're not here 10 o'clock in the morning or 5 till. You're going to be given demerits.

You get so many demerits, you get put out of the church. No, it's a free will, free will offering. I want to encourage you to be here on time, encourage you to be here when we meet together in fellowship.

Just encourage you to do that. But it's a testimony to where our heart really is. It's a testimony to how much of the Spirit of God we have and whether God's Spirit is in control of us, how we respond to the Lord's work.

So those two words have all things common. At least we can go that far. We have all things common.

I appreciate the testimony, Brother Cleat. I was watching on the phone. You put out a testimony.

I need this tool. Someone said, I got it. I need this tool.

Someone said, I got it. I need a van. You got it.

I got it. Whatever you need, I got it. I like that.

It's a good thing. Sharing. Maybe there's some people amongst us who don't have much.

Are we trying to bring things up equal? And also, I think we should work more on a daily religion, a daily religion. You see why? Wait a second. I got to have 10 hours for my work.

I got to have some time for my family. And basically, I got to have time for some sleep. That leaves me no daily religion.

Maybe we ought to go over and visit those in Kabul and see what kind of houses they live in. That would probably help us. See what kind of food they eat.

See what kind of cars they drive. Do what kind of clothes they wear. Maybe they'd say to us, well, you guys live way over here.

And you spend all your life working to hold that standard of living. Maybe you ought to come down here with us and you have plenty of time to live a daily religion. I don't know.

Just a suggestion. So let's have all things common. Let's have more of a daily religion.

That's what I take from the message this morning. And so I'll throw that out to you, and you can share what your heart has to share. Let's pray.