“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8
In Hyman Alterman’s book, Counting People, he estimates that there were more than one-fourth billion people on the earth at the beginning of the Christian era – that is more than 250 million people.
It is believed that the book of Acts was written in about AD 60. In AD 48 the Roman emperor Claudius ordered a general census of the Roman Empire. In the census the males between 17 and 60 years of age were counted. There were 5,984,200 of them.
The point is this. The task, the mission, which had been set before those 120 Christians was enormous – impossible in human terms. “Evangelize Jerusalem,” The Lord Jesus said, “and all Judea and Samaria, and even the uttermost part of the earth.”
And do you know what happened? By Acts 19:10 you will read that they essentially fulfilled this mission. They basically evangelized the world in which they lived. And do you know how they did it? They did it in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not alone as His witnesses – we are empowered by the Holy Spirit as His witnesses.
Your brother in Jesus,
BRIAN AUTRY
P.S. Make plans to join us for our SBCV Evangelism Tour with Jimmy Scroggins. We have two different days and two different locations. March 29th in Colonial Heights (Richmond area) and March 30th in Fincastle (Roanoke area).
