The one that Waylon's passing
out there is, if you remember a couple weeks ago, we looked
at the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1644, 47, with Benjamin
Cox's appendix in it. That is those paragraphs that's
in that confession that deal with the church, and how it showed
you that Baptist before the Compromise of 1689, They all held and believed and
put out that they believed in. And boys, those ones that the
ink ran out on, you kids have those, because I can always get
you ones at home. But make sure all the adults,
especially the ones that's not living in our house, have the
ones that have good ink. Ran out of ink this morning.
I was printing the rest of them out. Anyway, that shows that Baptist
understanding of the term church in the scriptures was not this
universal, invisible entity that the Protestants has brought into
the modern-day churches. You'll see there that in that,
that we went through, and I kinda highlighted a few words through
there just to bring out the understanding of that. You'll notice that they
understood that the church wasn't all the same of everywhere. It
was local congregations, gathered congregations. And that's what
we believe here. We don't believe that the church,
whenever the Bible speaks of the church, it's not speaking
of all Christians everywhere, it's speaking of local congregations.
And as we begin to see, and basically what we're talking about in this
study on the church, is what we've started with is the nature
of the church. Okay, we're looking at the nature
of the church. What kind of church is it that
Jesus began, and what kind of church is he building? And we looked at three different
ways, and you could actually break them up a little bit further
than that, but the three main views we've seen was the Roman
Catholic view, a local, or excuse me, a universal visible church,
and that basically means that every Catholic church everywhere
in the aggregate or in the whole makes up the one Catholic church,
okay? So every church that's located
around the world that's a Catholic church is all part of the one
big church in Rome, and that makes up one universal, because
it's everywhere, visible because it's a gathered, into a church,
you know, into a place, body. And so that's the Catholic view. And then the Protestant view,
whenever the Protestants came out of the Catholic church during
the 1500s, during what was called the Reformation, they began to
purport a view of the church, which is the universal invisible,
meaning that the church isn't a local congregation, that it
is a, It is the body of Christ that is every elect person of
God everywhere, okay? And so it's universal, meaning
it's not gathered in one place and it's invisible because it's
not got to do with any kind of location or gathering. It's all
got to do with you've been born of God. Then there's the third,
the Baptist view, or I would say the biblical view, which
is the local visible church, which means that the church is
a gathered body of believers that have been baptized and made
a profession of faith in Christ Jesus and been baptized by immersion
and have gathered themselves together for corporate worship
and for the edification of each other. And so, and we'll look
about all of what that entails as we go along in the studies.
But the nature of the church that we've seen is a local and
a visible church. And in doing that, I've
also started going back and I've shared with you several quotes
from history, and I'm gonna also print those out eventually and
give all that stuff to you, but also remember they're found in,
a lot of them are found in these two books that we have out on
the table, the Trail of Blood and the New Testament Church.
A lot of those quotes are found in those two books. Some more
that I have, I will eventually print all these quotes off, but
we'll see that not only did historians of Other denominations, not just
Baptists, but other denominations, historians, men of language,
the new language and stuff like that, all talked about how the
church, as it originally was understood, the word ecclesia,
all talks about a gathered congregation, not a universal invisible thing,
not a universal local thing, but as a congregation that is
a specific congregation gathered together and each congregation
made up the body of Christ. And so we're the body of Christ
here. Anyway, so we looked at that
and seeing that historically, the word ekklesia was known as
a congregation and not a universal body, not a invisible body, but
a local visible body. We also looked at the etymology
of the word ekklesia. We looked at seeing the root
and how that word was understood classically to the people that
it was being used even before Jesus took that word and used
that to describe his church. He used the word, the word ekklesia
was known to those Greek speaking people at that time. And it was
a specific thing. If you remember, we looked at
the four other words that Jesus could have picked that meant
an assembly or a gathering. And we've seen that Jesus didn't
use those three that was a general assembly, okay? If it really
was, as the Protestants put out, a universal, invisible assembly,
meaning an assembly of called out people, then Jesus could
have used one of those other terms, which actually meant a
general assembly, not a specific local assembly that's been called
out conduct business, but a general assembly, like, say, the, excuse
me, the Olympics, when all the people gathered for the Olympics
from everywhere, that made up a general assembly, okay? That
word wasn't ekklesia, they didn't use the word ekklesia for that.
Whenever they talked about a gathering over several places where people
gathered, like, let's, like, the, like the, every year they
have the, on the National Day of Prayer,
okay? They have people from all over
the place, they gather together. Well, here's a good example.
See you at the polls. Schools every year in September
have a see you at the poll day, okay? And on that day, schools
everywhere, the Christian kids in those schools get together
and they meet at the poll and they pray and they do all that
stuff, okay? That would be a universal invisible, or excuse me, a universal
local or visible assembly, okay? That means that it's everywhere,
but it's local, they're all gathered, okay? And that term would have
been used, or the term that would have been used for that was not
Ecclesia, but it would have been Pantagoreus, okay? And so Jesus
could have used that to mean, you know, one of the questions
that was brought up last time was, can it be, you know, all
the churches make up the one? Well, if that was true, Jesus
would use that term, okay? He would have used Pantagoreus,
meaning that it was an aggregate of all the others, but he didn't
use that. He used the term ekklesia, which
was a very narrow word, which meant a called out and gathered
assembly, yes, but it was a gathered assembly that was gathered together,
organized, and was there to conduct the business or the affairs of
the kingdom or the city. And so we see that's why he chose
that term is because in every place Christ has his church. He has a gathered body of people
that comes together. Out of the rest of the people,
out of the rest of the Christians, they come together and they form
a body to conduct the affairs of the kingdom. And this is where
he has placed the preaching of the gospel. This is where he's
placed the gifts. This is where he has placed the
ordinances. And so it's within the context
of the local visible assembly that these things are done. So
we've seen that the etymology of the word, the history, all
back the fact that the word, as we find it in scripture, means
a local visible assembly. And so today, what I'd like to
do is, the sheet that Zach handed out to you, is the study that
we did, or that I've done on, looking at what Scripture said.
I told you that eventually we're going to get to the Scripture
because at the end of the day, whatever we see in history and
whatever we see in etymology and whatever we see by the quotes
of men and the words of men doesn't matter, okay? The only thing
that matters is what does God's Word say about it? See, we don't
believe what we believe about the church here because the Baptist
of 1644 said it. Now, I love the fact that I can
find that in the history of the Baptists, that they're saying
that, okay? It's wonderful to see those things.
It's wonderful to look back and see in the trail of history that
you see these things being pushed out and believed. But as we look
in history, sometimes a lot of things that we believe may not
be found written down in history because, for one, it may not
have been an issue at that time. It was a common knowledge, and
so they weren't Because whenever people put up what they believe,
they put up what they believe to contrast themselves from what
others are believing or saying. But if it's a common knowledge,
you know, they're not gonna necessarily contend for that or that's gonna
come to the forefront. You're not gonna find that. But
as we've seen in history, most of the times, men would write
about the things that were being contested about what they believed.
And that's why we find writings about those things. And so sometimes
you don't find that because it was a common understanding, The
other is because the Baptists have been so heavily persecuted
prior to the Reformation and after the Reformation that there
isn't a whole lot of writings prior to the Reformation that
we can actually go to and look at, other than some various places
throughout historical writings, whether it be not necessarily
by Baptists, by non-Baptists that have wrote, especially the
Catholics. Everybody here heard of Fox's
Book of Martyrs? Well, do you realize that Foxe's
Book of Martyrs, that a lot of the people that are in there,
really, they died for Christ, but a lot of them that was in
there wasn't necessarily Christians. And that the Foxe's Book of Martyrs
was a compilation of a lot of people that the Catholics had
persecuted. And the Catholics were persecuting
people that was not necessarily like them, And in doing that,
that could have been a broad range of people. If you really
want to get a good look of martyrs that were of the true faith,
get a copy of the Martyr's Mirror. The Martyr's Mirror is like the
Fox's Book of Martyrs, but it's actually a compilation of the
Anabaptists who were persecuted. So that gives you a little more
idea of that. But anyway, and it's a lot more,
there's a lot more there than in the Fox's book, Martyrs. But
anyway, to say that is that we've gained a lot of understanding
through history. But see, even though that's there, that isn't
the reason why we believe what we believe. I don't believe that
because somebody told me that in history. And I don't believe
that because John Gill, who's a theologian or whoever else
that writes in the past, I don't believe it because the Catholics
have a history of their own. They have historical writings
that they can go back and point to. Hey, see there, that's in
my history. See, history doesn't mean anything. History only means
anything whenever it affirms what the Word of God says. So
the Word of God is our only rule of faith. So we go to the Word
of God. And I don't look at even the
etymology. you know, while that does mean a lot, ultimately comes
down to what the Word of God says. So I've been saying for
weeks now that eventually we're gonna get to the Bible and see,
because that's where it lies. If I look into the Bible and
the Bible tells me that this is what a subject or whatever,
a word, means as defined by God himself, then I have to forget
what man dictionaries, lexicons, everything says. Just because
a man is smart in words, and smart in translation, and smart
in history, doesn't mean anything. That is the wisdom of men. The
only thing that matters, see the word of God comes by revelation.
It doesn't come by persistent study. Now that doesn't mean
that we don't persistently study the word of God, but what I mean
is people can study the Bible over and over, day after day
after day after day after day after day. But if God doesn't
give revelation on something, then it doesn't matter how much
you study it. Turn on the History Channel and
watch anything that has to do with Christianity on there. Almost
everything that you watch on there is absolutely absurd. And
they've got people on there that have got doctorates and letters
this long behind their name that are versed in biblical everything. and absolutely have no understanding
of the Bible whatsoever. So just because somebody spends
a lot of time studying the Bible doesn't mean that they have biblical
understanding. They may have the knowledge as
man's wisdom gives them, but they don't have spiritual knowledge. And so we come to God's word
and we seek to understand things by what God says about it. And
I've mentioned to you guys before The best way to do that is whenever
we're looking at God's word and you're wanting to understand
a word that it says, and in this case, we're looking at the word
church, and behind that word church is the term ekklesia,
okay? That's the Greek word that Christ
used whenever he penned the word of God, or had the word of God
penned. He had it penned in Greek, and
in that Greek word was ekklesia. And so whenever we look at that
word, everywhere in the Bible where that word is found, and
see how God used it, then that gives us an understanding of
what it means as far as God intended it to mean. And so at that point,
if what God usage of it contradicts man's usage of it, then man's
usage of it means nothing to us. We submit to God's usage
of it. And so that's where this has
come, this is why I say You know, some of these things are not
easily understood unless you go and do some study on it. Some
of these things are not realized until you study it. And that
was the case for me. Until I studied this, I didn't
realize that. I believed that the church was
everybody, that the church was just the people of God, in general,
everywhere. And that's what I thought and
believed, and that's what I preached and taught. And that wasn't the
case. as I begin to see how God used
the word, then I begin to realize, hey, I need to reform, if you
allow me that word, my speech and my understanding of things.
So, I printed out for you there, that is everywhere that the word
ekklesia is found in scripture. Every verse in the Bible that
ekklesia is found is in that study right there. If you want
to look and see and do your word study and see, go through every
one of those verses, which we're going to do. But every one of
those verses we're going to go through, and we're going to look
and see the term ekklesia and how it was used. Now, if you
look there on your paper, you'll see that ekklesia is used 115
times in the New Testament. Now if you look there in the
New Testament, there's 112 times that this term is translated church or
churches out of the 115 times. The other times it is translated assembly. So three times it's translated
assembly, 112 times. So the overwhelming majority
of the times that ekklesia was used in the scriptures, in the
New Testament, the term was translated church or churches. And three
times it was translated assembly. Now I also wrote down who all
used that term. If you'll notice, Jesus used
the term Ekklesia 22 times in the scriptures. Luke used it
24 times, Paul used it 62 times, and by the way, if you're like
me and you consider Paul to be the author of Hebrews, then it's
64 times. James used the term once, and
John used the term four times. So, we will go through and look
at these here, and I want you to see Matthew 16, 18 is where
we'll begin. That's kind of been the backdrop
for our study and everything. And the reason that I put that first,
not only is it because it comes chronologically first in the
scripture, it's the first place that it's used in the New Testament. And Jesus was the first one to
use it. It says, and I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and
upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And so, the understanding with
most people today, and me in the past, has been that that's
talking about God's people everywhere, that the gates of hell's not
gonna prevail against God's people everywhere, and that the church
is this universal, invisible body of people that's all over
the world that calls themselves Christians, okay? But we need
to understand that Jesus, at this time, had began a ministry,
and at this point in time, had already begun a ministry of preparing
a group of men. John the Baptist had been given
by God, ordained of God, called of God, gifted of God, to preach
and to prepare a way for Jesus. Okay, we know that, right? That
John the Baptist, it was said of John the Baptist that he would
prepare a way for him, for Christ, okay? And that he was to prepare
a people ready for Christ. And so John came, and we're gonna
talk more about John in the days ahead, about whether or not John
was an Old Testament prophet, the last, or a New Testament
prophet, or whether he was in between the New Testament, Old
Testament. We're gonna talk about John.
later on, but I believe that John is the first New Testament
gospel preacher, okay? John was the first New Testament
gospel preacher, and the gospel began with John. So anyway, but
we see that John began to preach repentance and baptism, and he
began to prepare people, and then whenever Jesus came and
was baptized, what did John begin to do? He said, hey, I'm not
worthy to tie this guy's shoes That guy's a lot better than
me. I must decrease, he must increase. And he didn't have
a problem whenever the Pharisees came to John and began to say
to John, hey, look, he's baptizing more disciples than you are.
John didn't say, well, that's not nice, or get uptight, or
get mad, or get jealous, or anything like that. He said, hey, the
bridegroom has the bride. The friend of the bridegroom
You know, he's just glad to be at the party, all right? And
so, you know, he said, I must decrease and he must increase.
See, John knew the purpose for why he was there. He was there
to prepare for the bridegroom. He was there to prepare for Jesus
to come, and those people belonged to him and not to John. And so
John was beginning to prepare those people for Christ, and
then whenever Christ came, he began to call the people to himself.
But if you'll notice, all those people that John preached to
and baptized in the River Jordan and everywhere else that he was
at, whenever John baptized them and they began to follow Jesus,
out of those people, who did Jesus choose? He chose 12 men,
right? There were multitudes of people
that began to follow Jesus, 12 men to himself. and they accompanied
together. And as they began to do that,
more and more people began to accompany with them. But specifically,
Jesus called out first 12 men, and those he called apostles.
Now, we learn in the New Testament that the Bible says that he placed
within the church first apostles, right? Well, that tells us that
the church wasn't in the Old Testament because there wasn't
apostles in the Old Testament. So we know that there was no
church in the Old Testament. Now we will see as we go along,
there's a verse in scripture that talks about the church in
the wilderness, but that's not the New Testament church. That's
not the church that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16,
18, that he says that I will build my church and the gates
of hell should not prevail against it. That's not the church that
he set apostles in first because the apostles weren't in the Old
Testament. That word church is just the Greek word, ekklesia,
in the Septuagint, that was used, and that word church in the Old
Testament meant congregation, and that's what they were. It
was the congregation of Israel, a gathered group of people, okay? But as we see, leading up to
where Jesus is speaking here in Matthew 16, 18, he began to
gather this group of men, and he began to instruct them and
teach them the doctrine of Christ. his doctrine, all things whatsoever
he wanted to be taught through the church, he began to teach
these men and to instruct these men and to prepare these men
to be, whenever he ascended, to be the ones who would lead
and oversee the church after he leaves. And once that church
being established as an institution, that church being established,
specifically the Jerusalem church, But then every church after that,
as they went out and was dispersed and began to preach and the Great
Commission began to be visualized, we see people that was being
gathered into churches. Everywhere they went, they gathered
into churches. They gathered into churches. And so Christ
was instructing these men the doctrine of not only what to
teach and to preach in there, but also how to function within
the church. He was giving them the rules
and the decorum of the church. He was giving them the, we call
it the faith and practice, okay? The faith of the church, which
is the body of beliefs, and the practice of the church, or what
we would call ecclesiology, okay? He gave them how to operate.
He gave them officers. He gave them ordinances. He gave
them commands that they are to follow within the church. disciplinary
orders, he'd give them all kinds of things. And during this period
of time, he has been instructing these men, and before he left,
he commissioned them to carry that out. And then to instruct
or to indoctrinate everyone who becomes a disciple through your
testimony and witness and your ministry, everyone who becomes
disciples, you are to baptize them, and then you are to bring
them back into the church and to teach them all things whatsoever
into the church. He said to bring them back into
the church and instruct them because the church is the pillar
and the ground of truth, according to the scriptures. So whenever
we come to Matthew 16, 18, and Jesus said that I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,
he's speaking of the church, a local visible assembly, yes,
but he's speaking of it in its institutional sense. And we talked
about this last time we was together. Just like if I would say next
week I wanna have a sermon on the family, okay? It's not a
particular family. I'm not gonna come and preach
on the Smiths, okay? I'm gonna preach on the family
as an institution. You know, one, the family as
a example of how all families are to be, okay? So the Bible
has a way of teaching about the order and who the family is. The family is not a husband and
husband, right? That doesn't make up a family
according to the Bible. Now in society, that makes up
a family, right? In today's society, you're considered
a family if you have two dads and a kid. But is that a family
according to the Bible? No, see, that's why we don't
believe that these homosexual relations and families and things
that's out there actually have any, you know, ground because
according to the Bible the family consists of a husband and a wife
and children if there's children that's what consists of a family
we can't redefine what God has defined same thing with the church
we can't redefine church what God has laid down what the church
is and so as an institution the family we find that the scripture
says that the family is a husband and a wife with the husband as
the head, wife and children submissive to the husband, right? We find
that there are roles and that there is an order and that there
is a way that the family should be done. The husband and the
wife are to teach and train the children. So there is this level
of working order within the family And that family, not any specific
family, but any family that is a family according to the scriptures,
is gonna follow that order and be that order. And if they follow
that order and are in that order, then they are what the Bible
calls a family. Right? Same thing with the church. That's the other institution
that God made. God came with three institutions, right? He
came with family, he came with church, and he came with a government.
Family, church, and government. Those are institutions. And so
the church, like the family, Jesus spoke of institutionally. He said, I'm gonna build my kind
of church. Not the kind that the Greeks
are using out here, but my kind of Ecclesia. And then my Ecclesia,
the gates of heaven's not gonna prevail against it. And that's
been true. Every church, that has ever existed
on the face of the earth has perpetuated the faith and the
practice that Jesus began, and that's why we're here today.
There's never been a time in all of history from the time
that Jesus said this until today that Jesus has not had a church
witness in this, and I'm not talking about people everywhere,
I'm talking about a group of gathered believers that has gathered
and has purported the doctrine and the practice of Jesus Christ.
That's why I don't need this trail of blood. Hey, it's nice
to have that, to see that, but you know what? If that didn't
exist, if those history books didn't exist, guess what? I can
trust it because Jesus said it. Jesus said that this thing is
gonna continue on. The gates of hell are not gonna
prevail against this thing. It's gonna continue on. And it
has in every generation. Jesus has had his group of gathered
believers who have done what he has commanded to do. And guess
what? It will be. No matter how bad
it gets looking in the United States, Jesus is gonna have,
somewhere in this world, is gonna have the witness here. He will
have that witness until he comes again. You know why I believe
that? Well, he said so. Not because
I find it, not because it makes sense to me, not because I feel
it, because it says it. He says it. He said, lo, I am
with You always, actually he said ye, if you do King James,
but the root word behind that is the single collective. Remember
we talked about ye? Doesn't mean a single you. Ye
and you is not equal, okay? Ye is a single collective, meaning
a collective of people, but it's a singled out collective. He said, lo I'm with you always,
even in the end of the world. even unto the end of the world,
until he comes back again. Jesus has promised to be with
his church, wherever that church is gathered. And so that's an
institutional use. It's not a invisible universal,
but it's an institutional. Wherever his kind of church is
found, that's where he's gonna be. That's kind of where we said
last time, You know, there's a lot of imposters that's out
there. There's people that gather. There's people that carry Bibles.
There's people that have preachers and all this kind of stuff. And
they talk about a Jesus and all that, but that doesn't mean that
they are a church, a New Testament church. Jesus is kind of church
that this promise was made to because they don't keep the commandment
of Christ, which is his gospel. They don't keep the ordinances
as Jesus has ordained them to be carried out. So if it doesn't
look the same, walk the same, smell the same, talk the same,
it's not the same, right? It may be similar. Again, we
go back to that example of Burger King and McDonald's. Burger King
kind of looks like McDonald's, you can buy hamburgers there.
French fries, shakes, but it's not McDonald's. Okay, there's
a lot of churches out there that look like churches, but they're
not because Jesus said if they don't come, with the doctrine
of Christ, they're not mine. You're not
to accept them. You're not to welcome them. You're
not to greet them or tell them Godspeed, okay, because they
don't come with my doctrine. Jesus said that it's only these
that do that. His church has promised that. Just because somebody names the
name Jesus doesn't mean that Jesus is with them. And I know
that's hard to understand, I know that's hard to grasp, and it's
hard for us. But that's the truth of it. Look at Matthew chapter
18 and verse 17, the next one down. Now again, I put that there
first, and whether you agree with me on the institutional
use or not, we're gonna go through all these verses, and at the
end of all these, whenever you see that in every place that
this is used, it's talking about a local congregation, then we
just kind of have to go back and say, well, maybe I have it
wrong in this first verse. You know, if I'm thinking that
this is a universal and invisible thing. Matthew chapter 18, verse
17 says, and if he shall neglect to hear the now, remember, the
context of this verse is whenever there is an offended brother,
that offended brother is offended and you're to go to that brother,
or if that brother is out of line doing something, You're
to go to that brother to correct that brother. And if he doesn't
listen to you, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to take
a witness with you. You're supposed to take somebody else, two or
three witnesses, or to go to him. And if he doesn't listen
to them, then what are you supposed to do? Right here. And if he
shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he neglect
to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and
a publican. Now, if you notice in this, by
the way, also, print out that I give you behind the word church. I also put the Strong's number,
so you can go look it up if you want to go look it up to check
me out. But it's Strong's G1577, that's Ecclesia. So that you
can see that the term Ecclesia is behind that, okay? And so that this is uniform all
the way through as we're going through here, that the term Ecclesia
is there. But he says, You take a brother
who is in error and you go to that brother and you try to correct
that brother and reprove him and he doesn't listen to you
and doesn't repent, then you're to take somebody with you and
go. And if he doesn't listen to that, then Jesus here in Matthew
18, 17 says, if they neglect to hear them, then tell it to
the church. Now, how in the world is that
possible if the church is a universal invisible thing? The only way
that this is working is in the context of a local assembly,
a particular assembly, that's gathered together. You take it
and tell it to the church, but if he neglect to hear the church,
now the church begins to make judgment upon this man and upon
his error. Now, by the way, that's how we're
supposed to do things, This doesn't happen very often
in churches, even true New Testament churches anymore. This is scarcely
done correctly. Only a few churches do I see
that actually follows this biblical rule. They don't believe it's
anybody else's business. It's nobody else's business.
It's not their business. Well, actually, yes it is their
business. Because if you're in error and
you don't repent and a brother comes to you with the word of
God to correct you and you don't repent, and he brings someone
else from the church and you don't listen to them, they bring
it to the church. And then the church at that point
now comes to the man, calls the man within the assembly, and
biblically counsels that man on what the scripture is and
his error. And if he does not listen to that, then what does
it say there? Let him be unto thee as a heathen
man and a publican. Not to keep coddling him, you
know, coddling him. Coddling, I think I just made
that up. Coddling, you don't keep coddling him. You don't
keep trying to, you know, win him over, you know, smooth him
over. What does it say? Treat him as a heathen. Why?
Because he's already had three warnings. Doesn't the Bible say
a heretic after two or three warnings, put him out of the
church? That's what the Bible says. The
word heretic means someone who's divisive. It doesn't mean someone
who preaches wrong doctrine, although preaching wrong doctrine
can divide, but the word heretic means a divisive person, someone
who is being divisive. So if someone is coming and they
are in error and they refuse to be corrected or they refuse
reproof and they will not repent, then they're being divisive.
And whenever the church comes and says in judgment over that
person, hey, you need to repent of this, And if you don't, we're
gonna have to put you out, then that person, if they don't repent,
are to be put out and treated as a heathen, as it says here,
and a publican. That doesn't mean we don't reach
out and try to restore them, but they're to be put out. They're
not to, well, let's just let him stay and just, you know,
we won't let him teach. No, that's not what it says.
It says to treat them like a heathen and a publican. Now, how can
that happen in a universal invisible church? You can't. You can't
bring that before a universal body. You can't bring that before
an invisible body, which is an oxymoron, because there ain't
such thing as an invisible body. Okay, so we see here, this is
speaking of a local assembly. Jesus is telling them, bring
them to the local assembly of gathered saints who are to bring
judgment in this matter. I know there's gonna be some
that say, well, we're not supposed to judge. That's not true either. The Bible does say that we're
not to judge those who are on the outside, but those who are
on the inside, we are to judge. That's what Paul wrote to Corinthians. We're not to judge those on the
outside, but we are to judge those who are on the inside.
Acts chapter two, verse 47. Says, praising God and having
favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church
daily, such as should be saved. And a lot of people are gonna
say, well, yep, that's talking about the universal invisible
body that he added to the church, such as should be saved. And
that is not talking about the universal invisible church. Matter
of fact, let's look if you would there, Acts chapter two, Matter of fact, let's go back,
if you would, into Acts chapter one. Acts chapter one. Look at verse four. I'm gonna
go down and point out some things because as we've always said
here, context is very important, correct? Let's do a phrase, context,
context, context. Okay, Acts chapter one, look
at verse four. And being assembled together
with them. There's a term assembled. And
being assembled together with them, commanded them that they
should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the
Father, which saith he, ye have heard of me. For John surely
baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost
not many days hence. Okay, so he's talking about A
baptism with the Holy Ghost is gonna take place not many days
hence, but he's talking to who? The ye, those who were assembled
there. He was talking to that group
of people that was assembled. The baptism of the Holy Ghost
is not when we are quickened. I used to teach that. I used to preach that, that the
baptism of the Holy Spirit is whenever we're born again. That's
not the baptism that this is talking about. The baptism that
this is talking about is whenever the Holy Spirit fell on those
Christians on the day of Pentecost, empowering them for service,
empowering them, and also, as we'll see in days to come, to
also, to coincide with the Old Testament, that this is the place
of God's service. but I don't have time to go into
that today. We'll have to pick that up at a later date. I want
you to see some things here, though. For John truly baptized
with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many
days hence. When they therefore were come together, okay, they
weren't scattered, invisible, universal. When they come together,
they asked of him saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom of Israel? And he said unto them, it is
not for you to know the times, or the seasons which the Father
hath put in his own power. But here it is again, ye, this
is that collective singular, ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. There's the baptism
of the Holy Spirit. And ye shall be my witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and
unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And that actually happened.
later on in Acts. And when he had spoken these
things, while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received
him out of their side. And while, here it is, they looked
steadfastly towards heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood
by them in white apparel, which also said, ye men of Galilee,
why stand ye gazing up into the heaven? The same Jesus which
is taken up from you in heaven shall so come in like manner,
as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they, those that
were gathered, who had come together, who had assembled, then they
returned unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which
is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. And when they were come
in, they were up into an upper room where abode both Peter and
James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew,
and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelos, and
Judas, the brother of James. Now, who's that? Who is included
in that? That's the apostles, right? Okay,
who else was there? These all continued, the apostles,
with one accord in prayer, and supplication with the women and
marry the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. So who all
was there? The church was there. The church
existed before Pentecost. People that preach that the church
began at Pentecost is preaching contradiction to God's word.
The church existed before Pentecost. Jesus began the church with what
John the Baptist had prepared for him. John the Baptist prepared
the church for Jesus, and Jesus took the church and began the work within the
church before. Otherwise, why would he have
talked in Matthew, the verse before, Matthew 18, why would
he have even talked about bringing people to the church to the apostles?
until after the church was born. The church was born on Pentecost.
You know where all that mess come from? Come from Schofield. Guys like Schofield. Come from
dispensationalism. See, this wasn't the understood
things of Baptists in earlier days. These are things that's
come up in the last few hundred years of church history. They're not found in God's word.
The church wasn't born on Pentecost. The church was empowered at Pentecost,
but it wasn't born on Pentecost. Let's go on. So who all was there
in the upper room? There was the apostles, there
was the women, there was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and all
of Jesus' brethren. Now looky here. And in those
days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, and
looky here, the number of names together were about 120. That's
a pretty distinct amount of people, right?
The names and number was 120. They knew who were the ones who
were among them. They knew who was part of their
membership. Their names and numbers were 120. That's who had been
discussed in all this, is that 120 people. But brethren, remember
there was more than 120 people because Jesus showed himself
to over 500 people that had come to see him, that had gathered. But yet 120 out of all those
other people is who was there. Verse 16, men and brethren, this
scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost
by the mouth of David's faith before concerning Judas, which
was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us and
had obtained part of this ministry. Notice that he kept using the
word us right there. Now this man purchased a field
with a reward of iniquity and falling headlong, he burst asunder
in the midst and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known
unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem in so much as that field is called
in their proper tongue that is to say, the field of blood. For
it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be
desolate, and let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let
another take. Wherefore, of these men, okay,
again, there is a group of people in an upper room that is 120
and counting, okay, 120 in number, And he says, wherefore of these
men which have accompanied, that means that they are a company
together, a called out group of people separate from everybody
else, wherefore of these men which have accompanied with us,
us entailing everybody in that group, all the time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Okay, so it wasn't just whenever
Jesus was with them that they was the church, but they was
the church, company together, and Jesus came in and out among
them at different times throughout his ministry. So that meant that
they were ministering together even the time when Jesus wasn't
with them, okay. 22, beginning from the baptism
of John. Now we're gonna get into this
when we get into John, but obviously John's baptism wasn't just insignificant. Obviously, John's baptism wasn't
Old Testament washings, as a lot of people say, especially the
Protestants, Presbyterians and things. They say, well, that
was just Old Testament washing. No, this right here was different.
Beginning with the baptism of John, unto that same day that
he was taken up from us, again, the word us, talking about that
group of people, right? must one be ordained to be a
witness with us of his resurrection. So there was some guidelines
for that person to be an apostle. He had to be part of the church
with proper baptism. Verse 23, and they, again, who's
that talking about? And they appointed to Joseph
called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias. And they,
who's that talking about? Talking about the church again,
prayed and said, Thou, Lord, which knoweth the hearts of all
men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen. So what did
the church do? They sought the Lord. Lord, who
is it that you would have us? They didn't seek the seminaries. They didn't seek the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. They didn't seek after the learned
men. What'd they do? They sought among themselves.
Lord, who would it be that you would have us to put in this
place? So yes, did the Lord call a man? Yes, he did. But how did the
Lord do that? Well, he put it within the heart
of the man, but he also put it within the heart of the church
to recognize that man. See, the church and the individual
in ordaining and gifts and things, these things are recognized.
But see, that's foreign to people out there. What do we do? We
form committees and choose people according to their ability, human
abilities, of their credentials. That's not how the teachers of
the church are called. They're called because they fit
the parameters of scriptures. They're called because they've
been gifted by God to do that, not by the educational system
out there, okay? And they appointed to Joseph,
called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias, and they
prayed and said, thou, Lord, which knoweth the hearts of all
men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may
take part of this ministry. You notice that they said this
ministry? Whose ministry? They're talking about the church's
ministry. The church was already in ministry together. That he
should take part of this ministry and apostleship. He made different,
see, because some people may say, well, who are we talking
about his apostleship? They just split it. He said this
ministry and apostleship. So the ministry was the ministry
of that gathered group of people. And he is an apostle within that
group of people. Why? Because Jesus placed within
the church first apostles to be a foundational layer to teach
and to minister. So they were looking for a man
who met the requirements that the Bible said. And one of the
things is that he had to be a member of the church. that he may take part of this
ministry and apostleship, from which Judas, by transgression,
fell, that he might go to his own place. And they," this is
the church, gave forth their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was numbered with the 11 apostles. Now that word lot,
you know, a lot of times, and if you're like me, I used to
think that lots was casting dice. It's like rolling dice, and wherever
the lucky dice rolled, and that's who got it. That's not what casting
lots is, okay? Casting lots is a vote, is a
vote. So these people, they casted
their lots. Whenever you go to the ballot box, you cast your
lot upon the person that you're wanting to vote for. And whenever
the end of the night comes in and all the tallies are brought
up, the lot fell on whoever, okay? That's what they did. So here we see that everyone
in the church, they, because if you go back, It kept saying
they, they, they, they, they, they, all the way through. And
we learned that who was the they? It was the apostles, the women,
the mother of Jesus, and Christ's brethren made up the church,
whose names and number were 120. They voted and they realized
and recognized through prayer, through supplication, maybe even
fasting, they found that God had singled out one man and that
man was Matthias. They felt that he met all the
requirements and had the gift that would be needed to be the
apostle to replace the son of perdition. And they gave forth
their lots and the lot fell upon Matthias and he was numbered
with the 11 apostles. Okay, so I said all this, to
get to here, chapter two. When the day of Pentecost was
fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Again,
the they is the they of Acts 1, and the one place is the place
of Acts 1, the upper room. But notice that they were all
gathered in one place. It wasn't a universal invisible
thing. They were gathered in one place. And suddenly there
came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it said upon
each of them. And they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem,
now let me just pause there for just a minute, If you'll notice
there, that work of the Holy Spirit came down, and whether
or not you're thinking that that's the baptism of the Holy Spirit, if that is true, have you ever
seen that happen anywhere in your life to anybody? If it's talking about being born
again, doesn't happen. I haven't seen that happen to
anybody. So what happened in that upper
room is not the same as what happens on everywhere, everybody
else. Some people may say, well, that was then, and this is now,
this is how God does it now. No, no, no, no. Remember Jesus
said, whenever he was talking to Nicodemus, and he was talking
about that someone must be born again, and he says, the wind
blows where it listeth. You can't see where it's coming
from, you can't tell where it's going. He says, and so it is
with all, who are born of the Spirit. The circumstances around it may
be different, but the happening is the same. See, if the Holy
Spirit comes and lights on everybody with fire and mighty rushing
wind and all like that, then it's gonna do it to everybody. But it didn't, it only did it
to those. Why? Because there was significance.
That was the first church that would that was ever gathered
together. It was different than anything
that had happened in the Old Testament. Although there was
symbolism in the Old Testament that pointed to it, and we'll
see in days to come what that actually meant, but it was different. And so there was this visible
act of God upon this gathered assembly to signify or to give
credence to what was being done that was different than what
the Jews had been accustomed to all their whole existence. And there were dwelling Jerusalem
Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now when
this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded
because that every man heard them, the people in the upper
room, speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and
marveled, saying one to another, behold, are not all these which
speak Galileans? And how, here we every man in
our own tongue wherein we were born. Parthians and Medes and
Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and
Cappadocia, in Pontus and in Asia, Phrygia and Philia, in
Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene and the strangers
of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, We do hear
them, the ones in the upper room, speak in our tongues, tongues,
the wonderful works of God. What were they saying in the
wonderful works of God? I mean, in the tongues, the wonderful
works of God. And they were all amazed and
were in doubt, saying one to another, what meaneth this? Now
see, if this was a common occurrence, if this was something that just
was happening every time someone was being born again, you think
that they would be saying that? Don't think so. Others mocked
and said, these men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing
up with the 11, lifted up his voice and said unto them, ye
men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known
unto you and hearken to my words, that these are not drunken as
ye suppose, seeing that it is but the third hour of the day.
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall
come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my
spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old
men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my
handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and
they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood before the great and notable
day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
You men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, the
man approved of God." By the way, those last verses I read
was the quotation of Joel and the apocalyptic way in which
he talked about coming of the day of the Lord, which by the
way, we seen in AD 70, whenever Jesus came, not the day of the
Lord, the end of the time when Jesus had come, but we did see
whenever he brought in and all those things that came to pass
that the destruction of Jerusalem took place. Verse 22, you men
of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you, by miracles and wonders and signs which God
did by him in the midst of you, as you yourself also know. Him
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken by the wicked hands, have crucified and slain. Whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it is not possible that he should
be holding of it. For David speaketh concerning
him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, For he is on
my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my
heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh
shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer the unholy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the
ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy
without countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely
speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore,
being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath
unto him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh,
he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He's seen this
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ. So, here again, we
see Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in Christ, not in the
future, as dispensationalists, premillennialists teach, okay?
They believe that one of these days that Christ is gonna come
back, that there's gonna be this new temple built on the Mount
of Olives over in Jerusalem. Christ is gonna come down, rapture
the people out. There's gonna be a seven-year
tribulation. And then after that seven-year tribulation, then
there's gonna come, there's gonna be this big war, then there's
gonna be a thousand-year reign. And during that thousand-year
reign, Jesus is gonna sit on a throne in Jerusalem on the
Mount of Olives in the new-built tabernacle. And that is the fulfillment
of that prophecy that David talked about. But Peter says no, that
he was talking about Jesus' resurrection. See, that's when Jesus ascended
to the throne of David, is at his resurrection. That's whenever
God crowned him King of kings and Lord of lords. That is whenever
the Father displayed him before all the world, whose name is
above every name, and at the name of Jesus, every knee shall
bow and every tongue shall confess. He did that. his ascension after
his resurrection. See, the resurrection proved
that Jesus was who he said he was. The resurrection proved
that Jesus did all that the father required. The resurrection proved
that God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and his work. And so
it is by the resurrection that Jesus was proclaimed king. And that's whenever the Bible
said that he ascended set down at the right hand of God. He's
not waiting to do that after the thousand year, or during
the thousand year reign. He's doing that now. He is on
the throne now. We don't put him on the throne.
He isn't waiting to get on the throne. He is on the throne. The only time he wasn't on the
throne was whenever he, as Philippians says, as he humbled himself as
a servant, Even the death of the cross, he humbled himself.
At that point, he humbled himself and becomes subservient to the
things of God and the will of God and the decree of God. He
became subservient to those things. But rest assured, at his resurrection,
he ascended back to that place of prominence where he has been
for all eternity. He seeing this before spake of
the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell,
neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up
whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and
hear." So see, this is what was being talked about in the Old
Testament, that there would be a sign of God's work among these
people. and that this would be the sign
that Christ was who he said he was. For David is not ascended
into the heavens, but he saith unto him, the Lord said unto
my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy
footstool. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom
ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, and
here we go, Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their
hearts and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles,
men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them,
repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus
for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. Now that is exactly what John
was preaching. Repent and be baptized. Peter is preaching the same message
that John is doing. Repent and be baptized. They
say, what must we do? Now look, if you would, there
in that, they were pricked in their hearts at what Peter had
said. Peter had just preached to them all these things from
the Old Testament, okay? And the Holy Spirit had given
them understanding of that. And because of that spiritual
understanding, I would say because they were born again, They were
pricked in their heart, why? Because they had spiritual understanding
at that point. They had been born again, and
after being born again, they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and after hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were pricked
in their heart. See, that's why we teach here,
as the Bible says in many places, not just here, but in many places,
that a person is born again before they believe. You don't believe
and then get born again. That's backwards. You are born
again so that you can believe. Now, he says that they were pricked
in their heart. So that tells me that already
that there was spiritual awakening or spiritual birth there because
they would have been pricked in their heart at the gospel
had they not been. And then they began to ask, well,
what shall we do? And Peter said, repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remissions of sin. That's not to get your sins remitted,
but because your sins have been remitted. My grandpa used to
give an example of that all the time. I've given it to you here.
If there's a guy that goes out to war and he saves a bunch of
people in war and he comes back and the president gives him a
medal for bravery, is he giving him a medal so that he will go
out and be brave? No, he's giving him a medal for
bravery. Why? Because he was already brave. And so here we
are being baptized because we have remissions of sin. The baptism
is our public profession of faith of our identifying with Christ
who remitted our sins. We've already had the remission
of sins. And he shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And
we'll get into what that means later on down the line as well.
for the promises unto you and to your children and to all that
are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Now let me just pause here for a moment. I want to clear up
a few things. All right. There's a lot of Protestants,
especially in the Presbyterian realm that believe in covenantal
children. Okay. And they believe that their
children are into the covenant because they are Christians and
They look to this verse and they say, see, there's that verse
that baptism is the same as the circumcision was in the Old Testament.
And so they equate circumcision and baptism being the same thing.
And so the reason that they baptize their children is they baptize
their children to baptize them into the covenant, just like
the child was circumcised in the Old Testament into the covenant. And so they baptize their children
into the covenant. And they believe that that child
being baptized has the promises of the covenant. Now, whenever
you get down to brass tacks and start talking to them, a lot
of them will say, well, we don't believe in baptismal regeneration,
and we don't believe that baptism saves you, and we don't believe
that every child is gonna be the elect of God that are in
the covenant. but yet all of their statements
of faith do say that. And whenever you get down to
it, they actually do believe that because they believe that
that covenant child is given, well, of course, they don't do
it until they're old enough, but that covenant child is given
all the rights of citizenship within the church. But what does
it say here? It says that this promise is
unto you. Now, who is the you? Well, who
is assembled there? Jews, and unto your children, and unto all that are far off."
So Peter is saying, and I believe here at this point, Peter is
saying something that I don't even think Peter fully understands
himself completely, because he has to be taught this later in
Acts, whenever the Lord brings down the sheet with all the unclean
in it, okay? And he still don't understand
it at that point? But anyway, he says, to you and to all that
are afar off. So it's to Jews and Gentiles. The promise is to you and to
Gentiles, but look at the qualifier. What's the qualifier? Everyone
know what a qualifier, you kids know what a qualifier is? Something
that qualifies. That means that you have to meet
some, there has to be something that is met to qualify, okay? Okay, you can't get a driver's
license in Missouri until you're 15, right? What disqualifies
you from that? Being under 15, right? So the qualifier is to all those
who are 15 or older. Okay, so there is a qualifier
here that this promise goes to. For this promise is unto you
and to your children and to all that are far off in many as the
Lord our God shall call." So see, the promise isn't just to
the children because they were baptized. The promise isn't to
the children because they are children of Christians. The promise
is to all those whom the Lord shall call. It isn't to everyone
everywhere. It's only to the ones that the
Lord shall call. Of course, in Romans 8, we find
that it was the ones that the Lord has predestinated that he
called, right? Only the ones that God has predestinated
are the ones who are called. For the promise is unto you and
to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as
the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort saying, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Then they, here it is, then they
that gladly received his word were baptized, and the only ones
that's gonna gladly receive that word are those who have been
born again. Those who gladly received his word were baptized. The Great Commission said, go
make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them all things whatsoever
Christ commanded, right? There's three aspects to the
Great Commission. Make disciples, baptize, teach
them all things whatsoever Christ commanded. Now look what we see
here. He's made disciples, right? Peter
has stood up, has preached the gospel, and out of preaching
the gospel, God has brought to them disciples that God has given
understanding, that God has quickened, and God has pricked in their
heart, not man, not Peter, God has done that. God has pricked
their heart, give them spiritual understanding, and has drawn
them to himself by the Holy Spirit, and they have gladly received
the word And what did he say? They were baptized and the same
day were added unto them. Who are them? The Universal Invisible Church?
No, who's the them been in this whole entire context? The 120
that were gathered in the upper room. There were 3,000, a number,
souls added You say, well, wait a minute,
that says there were 3,000 souls. That's talking about being born
again. No, friends, that's talking about counting people. Whenever
you talk with someone, you said, you know, have you ever said
God bless their soul? Well, that's talking about an inner
spirit, right? But have you ever said, turn somebody somebody
and called them a soul? meaning a person, okay? Soul meaning a person. There
were 3,000 people that was added to them. There were 3,000 people
added to them that day. And they, the 3,000 and the 120
that was already there, continued steadfastly in the apostles'
doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. Teaching them all things whatsoever
Christ has commanded. It looks like the Great Commission
started right there. And I shall give you power. You
will receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you and ye shall
be my witnesses. In where? Jerusalem. There we see it right there.
The Holy Spirit came and and endued them with power. And what
happened when they were endued with power? The whole 120 began
to testify of the works of Christ. And what happened? It caused
a stir among all those multitudes that was gathered out there of
Jews, listening about Christ. And then all of a sudden, out
of that multitude, some were pricked in their heart and said,
well, wait a minute, that sounds like truth to me. And they were pricked
in their heart. And at the end of that, whenever
they found out that Christ died and that he was the one that
the Old Testament was talking about, that was Messiah, who
was the Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world,
then they began to put that together and say, oh, that's him. And the Lord drawed them to him. And they were baptized, but they weren't added until
they were baptized. And they weren't baptized until they believed.
Not all of them were baptized. 3,000 of them were baptized. 3,000 of them were added to the
church at Jerusalem. And there you see the first act
of the Great Commission. They made disciples. Well, I
say the first act. The first official act of the
church after the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that came
upon them. And fear came upon every soul.
Again, using the term soul there to signify people. And many wonders
and signs were done by the, who? By the church? No, many signs
and wonders were done by the apostles. And all that believed
were together and had all things common and sold their possessions
and goods and parted to them all men as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord, In the temple and breaking bread from house to
house did ether meet with gladness and singleness of heart, praising
God, having favor with all people, and the Lord added to the church
daily such as should be saved." Who's the church there? The 120
and the 3,000 that were added to them. A local congregation. who met together in the temple.
And then they also met together in home, breaking bread and fellowshipping
together. So whenever we look at those
passages and say that there were 3,000 souls out of them and he
added to the church daily such as should be saved, we can only
gather that it's talking about a local congregation. I mean,
that is not Those people that were added were not added to
this universal body. They were added to, as the context
bears out, to those who were already meeting in that upper
room, who are 120 in names and number. All right, let's, I don't even
know what time it is. It's 11.43. We'll stop right
there. We'll stop right there. 11.43. We'll go on to the next one,
Lord, real next week. We got a bunch to go through. A lot
of these we'll skate through really quick, though, okay? There's
gonna be a few of them that I'm gonna pause and do some exposition
of, but a lot of them are quick, easy verses that are very, very,
very on the surface. You can just see, you know what
it's talking about. So it ain't gonna be like that
on every passage, but anyway. For those who are watching by
Facebook Live, This study that we're looking at, the verses
on the church that I gathered all together in one spot, I linked
them up on our Facebook page this morning. You can download
there if you go in the closed group, if you go to files on,
I believe it's the left-hand side, you go to files, you can
do this. I'm sorry. There's also a study
on there called the Local Assembly by Joe Sarapino. Sarapelli. I put that on there that you
can download. It goes through a lot of the etymology that we've
discussed. Very thorough study of the church. You can download that there as
well. I'm also going to download, I
have a PDF copy of this book, The New Testament Church, that
I'll link up there this week. And I think I've also found this
online, if it's true that it's the whole book. then I'll link
that online as well. You can pull those down in PDF
if you want to. But anyway, for all those that
are watching and listening, you can find those on our Facebook
site, and you can pull that up. All right, does anybody have
any questions? All right, that's about how it
worked for me.