Well, we began last week. We transitioned from our study
on the nature of the church, which is a local visible assembly. And we transitioned into a study
on the origin of the church. And as we started last week,
I posited four possibilities that are out there that people
tend to gravitate to as far as when the church began. There
are some theories that say that the church began with the first
person ever saved. There are some theories that
say that the church began with Abraham. There are some that
say that the church began with John the Baptist. And there are
some that say that the church began on the day of Pentecost. And we looked last week and we've
seen that all four of those are false. The church didn't start
with the first man ever saved because the church is not the
elect as we studied on, seen on our study of the difference
between the family, the kingdom and the church, we see that all
the elect or the family of God are not in the church. That's
not the church, okay? The church is those that are
of the family and in the kingdom, they are called out and make
up the church of God. So we've seen that it couldn't
be, the church didn't start with the first man ever saved, and
it didn't start with Abraham, although Abraham is the father
of us all as it pertains to the faith of Christ, looking to Christ
and trusting in Christ. And he is, the Bible says, is
counted as the father of that faith. And so that is not where
it began. And then the notion of John the
Baptist, we looked at that a little bit and seeing that that was
kind of close, but that was not where the church began. John
the Baptist was the one who prepared the materials for which the Lord
made the church. And so we've seen that John the
Baptist was the forerunner, and we looked at the prophecies concerning
John, and we'll probably look a little bit more at some of
the things revolving around John in a later study, because after
we kinda go through what I hope to get through today, and maybe
next week, we're gonna look at an issue of the baptism with
the Holy Spirit. That is a very debated subject,
even among sovereign grace believers, that is a very debated subject,
just like the church is. But it pertains to the church,
It has to do with the church, and especially it has to do with
not only the church and who it is that was baptized, but also
it pertains to the difference between baptism with the spirit
and baptism with water, which is a ongoing church ordinance.
And so in the next couple of weeks, I hope to share with us
a few things and study on the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
but, and that also will include talking about John the Baptist.
So John the Baptist is very crucial to the beginnings of the church,
but it didn't begin with John the Baptist. And the reason why
is again, Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, a verse that we've been reading
very frequently in the study, Jesus said that, Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. The word there, ecclesia, church,
I will build my church. So it's Jesus who is the builder
of the church. And so if we want to look to
where the church began, it began with Jesus. Now, I'll go back,
and so we see it wasn't with John the Baptist. And then fourthly,
we looked at probably the most prominent belief that's out there,
and that is the belief that the church began at Pentecost. Has
anybody ever heard that teaching? That's what I believed growing
up, that's what we were taught growing up, that the church started
on the day of Pentecost. And that's whenever it began,
that when the Holy Spirit came down filled the upper room and
the tongues of fire came falling, they began to speak in tongues
and all that stuff that took place on the day of Pentecost,
that that was when the church was born. Matter of fact, there's
gospel songs that talk about that. We was listening to Golden
City on the radio the other day and, you know, they're talking
about when the Holy Ghost showed up. That's whenever the church
was born, that hour and everything. So there's, you know, all kinds
of, teaching out there that promote this, and as I said last week,
the major promoter of this idea is Schofield and his sorry old
Bibles that he put out with all his study notes in there. I know
that's very highly looked upon by many in the premillennial
dispensational circles and independent fundamental Baptists to hold
to those Schofield Bibles, but Schofield, I believe, has probably
done more harm to to the quote unquote church than anything
in laying out false doctrine about
the end times, false doctrine about the church, false doctrine
about Israel, just all kinds of stuff. But anyway, the church
did not start at Pentecost. And I just want to recap that
because we kind of finished through that at the end of the day last
week. And we had a couple of long messages
and I'm sure everyone was kind of getting tired. do the highlights,
and then what I did is I went ahead and I printed off the reasons
why the church existed prior to Pentecost, the proofs here
that we'll pass out here in a little bit, but you can take those home
and show them, because like I said, if you deal with anybody about
when the church began, they're gonna say Pentecost more than
likely, unless there's some sort of an old school Baptist or somewhere
along there, they're gonna say that it began before that, Most
people today, Southern Baptists being probably the largest denomination
in the United States, that's what they teach, that the church
began on Calvary. So, just to recap, if you remember
that the word church means called out ones, and Jesus called out
his disciples from those that John had prepared. John was the
forerunner of Jesus, all of the prophecies concerning John said
that he was going to be the one who would prepare people for
the Lord. Okay? He was going to prepare
people for the Lord. The Lord is the one who took
that people and began to build his church with. And so what
did John do? John began to preach repentance
and baptism, confession of sin. He began to preach the gospel,
began to point people to the lamb slain who would take away
their sins. He was preaching the gospel,
he was baptizing, and he was sending them to Jesus to be taught.
That's what the commission was. But anyway, John the Baptist
was preparing a people, Jesus called out of those disciples
that John had prepared, he began to call out a church out of those
disciples. And we've seen that, we read
those scriptures, they'll be in your notes there that you
can go home and read and do further study on. Another thing, and
I didn't actually go through this, but Jesus said that he
would leave his house on earth whenever he went away on a far
journey. And then the church is referred to, now we did read
a couple of verses pertaining to this, that the church is identified
as his house. And if you remember, whenever
we went through all those 118 verses where Ecclesiastes found,
we found that house of God is a, is how the church, the local
visible congregation, is termed. We are the house of God here,
okay? We are the house of God here,
and he has promised his presence. And as we go into the baptism
of the Holy Spirit here in a couple weeks, I hope you guys will be
here for that because, listen, there is, and I've said this
before in times past, there is something that is special about
the congregating of the people of God. That is where, God has
promised His power, His glory, that's where He's placed the
truth. And people wonder why, how in the world has these little
congregations survived over 2,000 years of persecution and changes
and all kinds of stuff and the rise of the Protestants and all
this kind of stuff? How has the Lord's churches survived
through all the turmoil, through all the doctrinal mix-ups and
mash-ups How has that stayed pure and kept going? Well, that's
because Jesus said right in verse 18, the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. He's promised that his presence
would be there. He has promised power to that
church. That's what the Pentecostal thing
took place there in Acts. It was to undo them with power
that within the local congregation, that is the Lord's congregation,
not just a random congregation, okay? Remember that the only
church that is a true church is the churches that hold to
the doctrines and the ordinances of Jesus Christ, the faith and
order and practice of Jesus Christ. If they aren't that, then they
aren't a New Testament church. They're an aberration. They're
an irregular church. They're a false church. They
are a harlot church. They are an organization outside
of the New Testament church, but they are not a New Testament
church. Jesus did not grant his blessing
there. Jesus did not grant blessings
on each individual. He granted that blessing of that
presence, that endued power, that holding and being the pillar
and ground of truth. He held that to the churches,
and that's how the doctrines and the practices of Jesus Christ
has been preserved through all the years. Yes, God's word has
been preserved in pages, but there's been times where these
have not been available. Where did God's word be preserved? It was preserved as the churches
of God continue to reciprocate that doctrine and practice of
that very first church. That's why Jesus gives them that
commission. And he told them to do it this way and to continue
to do it this way. Make disciples, baptize them,
teach them all things that I've commanded you to do. And so through that reciprocity
of that, the churches down through the ages have kept the word of
God. That's why whenever these manuscripts
come out, The church views those manuscripts and they see, hey,
these were in there. That's why we see that there
was corrupted Greek manuscripts. And whenever the true churches,
they would read those things, the Waldensians, some of those
manuscripts that came out that eventually made their way as
the manuscripts that these new translations out there use, the
Waldensians, they looked at that and they said, no, that's not
right. That's incorrect. And they wouldn't
hold to the manuscripts except for the ones from which the translations
from like the King James Bible, the Great Bible, the Tyndale
Bible, the Wycliffe Bible, all those that preceded the King
James Bible, all those versions came from the same group of manuscripts,
Greek manuscripts. And the churches throughout the
ages, they didn't have the Bible. but yet they continued that reciprocity
of teaching that doctrine. How did they do that? Because
they taught it, they knew it, they learned it, they knew what
was true, what wasn't true. And also, I would say that God
was teaching those people, even though they may not have the
fullness of the scripture in front of them, they was able
to, by the Holy Spirit's teaching and prompting in their heart,
I believe that they knew truth from error, as the Holy Spirit
gave light on that. And so, anyway, that is what
Jesus left. He left a house, and that house
has been perpetuated year after year after year, and that house
has been the place of his presence. We've seen that Christ spoke
of his disciples as a flock prior to Pentecost. and that the church
is identified, the local church is identified as the flock of
God. We see that they preached the
gospel prior to Pentecost, that they had Holy Spirit power before
Pentecost. They baptized prior to Pentecost.
They received the Lord's Supper prior to Pentecost. They had
an ordained ministry prior to Pentecost. The church had church
discipline prior to Pentecost. They had Christ as their head
prior to Pentecost. They had a membership prior to
Pentecost. They had a business meeting,
and they had elected officers prior to Pentecost. They had
a treasurer prior to Pentecost. I don't think a treasurer is
necessarily a mark of a New Testament church, by the way, but the fact
remains that they did have money that was brought in that was
used for their ministry as the church, and that was held by
a treasurer, but I don't believe that that is this necessary.
specified treasure to be a New Testament church, but they did
have one prior to Pentecost. Whenever we looked at the day
of Pentecost, it said that there were 3,000 added that day. Well, there has to be something
already in existence for them to be added to. So we've seen
that the church was prior to Pentecost. Jesus had given a
great commission. Remember, we just looked at the
chapter 28, all the verses prior to the Great Commission, and
we see that who was present whenever Jesus gave the commission? The
women, the apostles, the brethren, and all of those were in the
mountain, and he'd give them to all of them, but he called
the disciples and called them out specifically. Why? Because
those apostles, those 11 apostles, was gonna be the foundation that
lay, they were the foundation, that was laid in that first church
upon their teaching with Christ ascended, their teaching would
continue. Why? Because they were the ones
who was the most intimate with Jesus who he'd give all the teaching
to. We've seen that the Bible said
that he would place first in the church apostles. Well, he
put those, he sent those apostles at the very beginning of his
earthly ministry. Okay? So, The church was prior
to the Pentecost because the great commission was given not
to individuals, not to the disciples, but was given to the church as
in church capacity. The Bible says in Matthew chapter
16, 18, that the church was a building prior to Pentecost. He says,
I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. He always talking about building
this building under God or this house under God. and it was already
in existence there. We've seen in Acts that the church
was already in existence as they came back from the mount, being
given the commission, they came back to the upper room and they
began to talk about replacing Judas, and Peter stood up and
said that the person to replace Judas had to be someone who had
company with them already from the baptism of John. Okay, so
it had to be someone who had been baptized from the baptism
of John and had been companying with them all this time that
Jesus had went in and out amongst them during that time of Jesus's
earthly ministry. Okay, and so we see that that
church was already companying together and had the baptism
of John and that that was the prerequisite for the apostle
that would replace Judas. We've seen from John the Baptist
that Jesus already had the bride and he was the bridegroom. We've
seen that in John chapter three, verse 29. We've also seen Ephesians
five where it's talked about in Corinthians. But the bridegroom
was with the bride prior to Pentecost. Remember, the religious leaders
came to John said, hey, Rabbi, all those men and people that
you were baptizing and all those followers that are following
you, look, now they're following Jesus. He's baptizing more people than
you are. And John said, hey, the bridegroom
has the bride. The only thing that we have is
what we received from heaven. He said, I must decrease, he
must increase. Why? Because John was the forerunner
to Christ. It was Christ who was the one
who was to be the spotlight. And so John said, I must decrease,
he must increase. My time and purpose that God
brought me into this world is soon to be over. And I've completed
what I've been sent here to do. I am the forerunner of the Christ,
the Messiah. I was to prepare people for the
Lord, and now he has that people. And now that he has that people,
it's his church, he's building it, not me. I was just to prepare
the people for it, and now he's the one doing it, okay? So, the
bridegroom already had his bride prior to Pentecost. We also seen
that Christ sang in his church prior to Pentecost. That was
a fulfillment of Psalm 22 and also talked about in Hebrews
2. And then the very fact that there
is absolutely no scripture anywhere that says that the church began
at Pentecost. That very fact in and of itself
ought to be somewhat overwhelming to the ones who said the church
began at Pentecost. So anyway, that study there with
all those is there with scripture references, so you can take that
home if you want, because I'm sure if you're like me, you have
family and friends who disagree with what we say here about many
things, but that particularly. All right, this morning, what
I'd like to do, what time is it? How long have we been doing
here? All right, we did a recap there. Let's take a break. We'll come
back. If you need to get a drink, use the restroom. We'll come
back and I wanna talk more about Jesus and the centrality of Jesus
and the church. Him being not only the builder
of the church, but the perpetuator of the church. And we're gonna
see that it's Jesus. It's not man, it's not mission
boards, it's Jesus. And so we'll stop right there
and then we'll come back and start up here in about 10 minutes
or so.