The Church

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Acts 28:30-31 says, “ And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 

Act 28:31  Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”

     Saying “good by” in the South seems to be a long exercise that begins in the house, then goes to the porch, then goes to the car, then after the windows are rolled down, last minute words of affection, the car moves backward and all begin waving until out of sight.  The whole process can last almost a half hour.  Sometimes, it is hard to part with friends.

     The Apostle Paul would have made a good “Southerner” as he spent a long time saying good bye in most of his letters.  Romans 16 is a good example as almost the whole chapter lis ts the names of those workers that  were on the team of evangelism for Asia Minor and Europe.  Luke, on the other hand, doesn’t spend a lot of time saying “goodbye”  in either the gospel of Luke or the Book of Acts.  It is most fitting in the only historical New Testament Book as the  book never came to what we might call a logical conclusion.  The book has often been named the Acts of the Apostles, or the Acts of the Holy Spirit and in either case the work has not stopped as the church is still being added to even now.  The above passage relates the final days of the ministry of Paul  who was at that point in Rome, but the end would not come yet as God was not finished with Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel message to all those who would come to him.  No one on this earth at this time fully knows when that end will come as souls are being added   as living stones to the house of God, the Church.  No one here knows the date of the “final call” as God continues to send out those who will speak the message of the Gospel to the lost.  You might be the one with the last message and when the church is complete as God has ordained, the call will stop.  In light  of this we keep on proclaiming the message of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Gospel.  It is truly the “good news” that the world needs to hear.  Our hope, peace and mercy are all connected with that message.  The last soul might be in the assisted living home or in your place of business or in   your school  or even in your family.  We don’t know who it is so we keep on, keeping on.  “Bring them in, bring them in from the fields of sin.”  Praise God today for this “construction zone” in which we are living.  The fields are indeed white unto harvest.