The Church Has Left The Building!

ACTS 8:1b-4

THE CHURCH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!

“There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

“Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” [1]

Crowds were massive, larger than anything witnessed in the past. And the numbers grew larger with each appearance. The audiences were animated, even unruly! Girls screamed each time the young man looked at them, some even fainted. The young man was a phenomenon that hadn’t been seen before. December 15, 1956, was his final appearance on the Louisiana Hayride, and the growing crowds had forced a change of venue from the Shreveport municipal auditorium to the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum on the grounds of the Louisiana State Fair. The crowd, however, wouldn’t leave.

After a while, Horace Logan made the following announcement to the ten thousand teenagers packed into the Coliseum. “All right, all right, Elvis has left the building.” [2] That night marked the first time the announcement was made, but it would not be the last time. “Elvis has left the building” was an announcement that would be heard throughout the sixties and the seventies at the conclusion of concerts presented by Elvis. If the phrase was not delivered by promoters following a concert, it would often be spoken by some of the backup singers in an effort to calm down audiences following a concert. “Elvis has left the building” became the signal that the crowds were to leave so that life could go on.

When the first church sought ease, the advance of the Faith languished. When the first saints were driven away from the comfortable existence they had come to know, the Faith flourished, spreading rapidly, and transforming vast regions of that ancient world. God Himself ensures that we who follow the Risen Lord of Glory are not permitted to think that we will have rest now. We are promised a rest, to be sure.

Do you not remember the promise of rest we are given as recorded in the Book of Hebrews? That writer encourages saints, the redeemed of the Lord, when he writes, “While the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

‘As I swore in my wrath,

“They shall not enter my rest,”’

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ And again in this passage he said,

‘They shall not enter my rest.”

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

‘Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.’

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” [HEBREWS 4:1-11].

We who are twice born are at rest in our spirit because we have the Spirit of Christ Who gives us His rest now. Though this is the case, we are nevertheless restless because we must still be in the world. And the world is a restless place. Hence, we are forced to be alert against the intrusion of sin, alert against the attack of the evil one, alert that we do not stumble. Augustine observed, “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.” [3] Nevertheless, the time for rest for the chid of God is coming; whether sooner or whether later, that time still lies somewhere in the future. Now, however, is time for God’s child to work. Either we will obey the expressed will of the Master, or He will force us out of our comfort zone to fulfil the charge He has given each one who follows Him.