Throughout our days the Lord desires for us to comprehend and be aware of His ‘Divine Appointments’. If we are led by His Spirit and prepare our hearts to recognize His working in the events He has predestined to occur in our lives, we truly can see with the eye of the Spirit His setting up of ‘Divine Appointments’ in order for us to be effective in witnessing for Him and giving Him the glory through it all.
Just a few weeks ago my wife and I made a trip to the shore of South Carolina to do some ‘salt water’ pier and dock fishing. During our stay we knew ahead of time that we would be involved in an interview of sorts when a salesperson would try to sell us some property. So, we began praying on the way down for this person and as a result of our prayer God set up a ‘Divine Appointment’, and here is how it went.
We began with the salesman, a young man named Sebastian from Paris, France, giving us about a half an hour of his presentation when the Lord interrupted and I spoke to him about the Gospel Message. I shared my testimony with him and he had already spotted my New Testament in my back pocket and was aware of my ‘leanings’. Well, it just so happens that the Lord had gone before us and prepared the way! He, the salesmen, then told us of another ‘Baptist preacher’ that had witnessed to him a few months earlier and he had gotten to know him quite well, having had dinner with him etc. etc.
As soon as I heard that I turned up the heat as it were, and told him of God’s working as we prayed in bringing us to him and that the Lord was dealing with him in an unusual way, and eventually telling him of his need to receive Christ, for today could be the day that He might be suddenly taken from this life to face eternity without a Savior! Now, I would like to say I led him to the Lord right then and there, but that did not happen. What did happen was he hurriedly left us go our way, and was visibly shaken due to these events which he himself recognized was a ‘Divine Appointment’!
My wife caught a few fish during the next few days of our stay and we headed home, but the Lord kept impressing me about His desire to set up more ‘Divine Appointments’ and I had already been witnessing to a number of folks back home, but there was one man that I have given my testimony tract to and never could find him alone so that I could followup.
Well, when we got home I prayed about this guy and asked the Lord to set up an appointment with him, and the Lord said, ‘Get going, now is the time!’ so, I went down to the local ‘watering hole’ where the men of the area sit around and sip coffee and ‘chew the rag’ as my Grandma use to say, and wouldn’t your know it, when I got there he was there too, but someone was sitting with him at the table.
So, I got my coffee, knowing that the Lord had sent me, I went over to the table and just as I arrived, the other man got up and left us there all alone and…you know the rest! Yes, God had gone before me, and this 65 year old ‘60’s throwback’ with a Harley shirt and pony-tail down to the middle of his back listened intently and then told me that a friend of his in Mississippi was sending him preaching tapes and written messages every week, and once again the Lord demonstrated to me, and my lost friend, that He had gone before and prepared the way!
The next appointment the Lord gave me was another local Harley type whose name is ‘Hippie’, yes, that’s all he is known by there at the watering hole, but, once again I knew the Lord was setting up a situation where I would have the opportunity to be alone with him and give him the Gospel. He had some motorcycle parts I was interested in and so I went to his house-trailer one Saturday morning, and just before I got there two other bikers had gone in before me.
I knocked on the door and there was quite a scene, 11:00 in the morning and they are drinking beer, Hippie, his wife, and the two bikers, but they all seemed to know me and called me Wolfman and Hippie said we could go and look at the parts, however, they were at another location. Hmmm…we went alone, to the garage he spoke of, and on the way back I shared my testimony and the Gospel and told him that the Lord had sent me, so he turned to me and said ‘Can I ask you a question?’ And I responded, ‘Sure’ and he said ‘Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?’ And through that question the Lord gave me the answers he didn’t expect and in the process he told me his wife was an Independent Baptist and he was a Southern Baptist [but not saved]. He then discussed with me some of the things that were keeping him from receiving the Lord. To make a long story short, he was moved to see that I cared and thanked me sticking out his hand to me as we departed.
In Acts 2 the Lord set up a multitude of ‘Divine Appointments’ when the 120 were filled with the Spirit and three thousand were saved. There are four things necessary for the Lord to set up His Divine Appointments and they are all shown in this rather lengthy passage, but for the sake of brevity, we will just do a survey of this most powerful section of Scripture. First of all, there was the preparation of God’s servants. They, with an attitude of expectation [faith] prayed and were in ‘one accord’ in unity communing with the Lord.
These conditions must be met for the Lord to have His way in setting up His appointments for you. Believe that God is going to do what He promised by expecting Him to act! Exercise your faith in God through expecting Him to do what He said He would do! And, of course be in communion with Him. The illustration here is a group of 120 people, remember 108 of them were not Apostles but common people just like you and me!
Secondly, there is God’s divine intervention which in this situation was the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the all of the 120 being filled and speaking in the languages of the 18 different groups represented here. (v.1-13) They did not speak the Gospel at this point but rather ‘the wonderful works of God’. Now, we must expect the Lord to show Himself strong on our behalf when we go out to witness for Him, just as He did in the examples above. In every personal illustration I gave, the Lord had gone before and performed His work by having someone, something happen in the lost person’s life prior to the witness thereby showing that God was in it!
The third thing that happened is Peter explained or interpreted the meaning of these supernatural events. (v.14-21) And so the Lord told me to do the same when witnessing to those who were lost. As soon as the Lord opened up the events that occurred in their past to me, He gave me opportunity to explain that ‘God was supernaturally working in and through the things that had already happened to them’.
Peter then demonstrates for us the final and most important point, and that is he preached the Gospel unto them (v.22-40). And we must follow his example. Our personal testimony is the most powerful witnessing tool we have when it is intertwined with the Word of God! Peter told them of the events he had witnessed concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, intertwined and supported it all with powerful quotes from the Old Testament which all of them were familiar with, responded to their question with an invitation, and the result of his ‘Divine Appointment’ with three thousand of those souls being saved was miraculous indeed!
The very same thing to a lesser degree of the Spirit’s manifestation happened in all of the personal illustrations the Lord gave me to experience! He is the God of all flesh, nothing is too hard for Him, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKETH IN US…you know the rest…pray on, in the Spirit, for His ‘Divine Appointments’ and expect to see Him act on your behalf, for He has promised to ‘show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!’