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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman A
Converted Insurrectionist I
personally would not have done it, but Jesus chose a variety of
personality types to be His apostles.
One such person was Simon, a Jewish zealot (Mark 3:18), who like
many others wanted to overthrow the Roman government in the name of God.
Those like Simon demanded their freedom from what they considered
to be Roman tyranny. Of
course, the limited freedom they did have was lost in 70 AD in
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
It was then that When
Simon met Jesus he might have figured this was his chance to join a
movement that could bring about the insurrection.
Jesus certainly had the miraculous ability to facilitate Simon's
fantasy to free God's people, but that was not His choice.
Little did Simon know at the time, but Jesus would overthrow all
nations in one massive insurrection at the end of this age (Revelation
18 - 19). Simon
must have been bewildered and disappointed to hear Jesus say such things
as recorded in John 18:36. "Jesus said, 'My
kingdom is not
of this world.
If it were, my
servants would fight to prevent my
arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my
kingdom is
from another place.'" Simon
soon learned that Jesus did not call him to overthrow political tyrants
on behalf of God. His
primary allegiance would be to the heavenly kingdom, not to his
secularized Jewish state. His
aspirations for a so-called godly armed rebellion were over.
He would change his surrounding culture one heart at a time
through the preaching of the cross of Christ, something that sounds
foolish to our human reasoning, as seen in 1 Corinthians 1:18. "For the message of
the cross is foolishness
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God." Simon, the insurrectionist, became Simon the Christian. No longer would he waste his time, effort, and money fighting an earthly tyrannical state that would eventually fall in divine judgment. He finally realized that freedom from tyranny only comes about when one's heart is free from the tyranny of sin.
Like
Simon the converted insurrectionist, we must realize that our real fight
is against the tyranny of sin that rules in our hearts.
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