So we are in our third study
in the overview of the book of Acts. And if you have your outline,
you can open it up to the first page. I will be doing just a
tad bit of closing out on our initial point. As we consider
the church on fire, which you see is the basic theme of acts
as a framework and a premise to our series, a church on fire. The idea of fire as being the
first of four things I want to talk about really has to do with
the foundation of the church, the foundation of the church.
And that being point number one, uh, what is the issue of fire
in relationship to the church of the living God? We saw this
last week as we looked very intently at, uh, acts chapter two, verse
two and three. as it quotes and suddenly there
came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it
filled the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto
them cloven tongues like as a fire and it sat 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. We'll stop
right there. And, uh, you recall last week
how that, when we looked at this idea of fire, as it is given
to us in verse three and four, uh, actually two and three, uh,
and four, the idea of the fire and the wind and the tongues,
which is given to us in verses three through four, two through
four are symbols that God used one time in this particular context,
symbols are manifestations of the presence of the Spirit of
God. We talked about how that the wind accompanying this entrance
into the life of the church, depicting the presence of the
Spirit of God, is associated with the Old Testament analogy
of the Spirit of God being sovereign. Being sovereign, the wind blows
where it wills. It does what it wants. And human
powers don't have the capacity to control it or to manipulate
it or to coerce the wind. The wind here is an analogy of
the spirit of God. That's John chapter three, verse
eight as well. But it's analogy of the spirit
of God. The spirit of God is not itself literal wind. If you
were to do an exegesis of the text, you would know that the
text says it There was a sound like as of a mighty rushing wind. Now that was actually what they
experienced as a sound. And what it's doing is what we
said last week, affirming that the nature of God, the nature
of God, as is being revealed in the book of Acts is the same
God in the old Testament in his revelatory work of dealing with
his old covenant people. We are making a transition from
the old covenant to the new. That is a critical concept in
understanding what's taking place in the book of Acts. That Acts
is not a new thing in the sense that God has never depicted himself
as the wind. The word Ruach in the Hebrew
Ruach is a prominent term for wind or is translated the spirit
or the breath, the spirit that's in you and the spirit that's
in me. likened unto a breath or when you can't see it but
you know it's there it's vital it possesses life but in the
context of the Spirit of God when we see the Spirit of God
as the wind we are talking about that force of God's personality
that actively works to conform and produce upon the object that
it is engaged in a certain purpose, to perform or produce a certain
purpose. So we read in Genesis chapters
one, verses one, two, and three, in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. It's a description
of raw matter and chaotic form. Then it says, And the Spirit
of God hovered, brooded over the waters. You guys remember
that? The Spirit of God brooded over the waters. Ruah is the
word for wind. And then you'll see that concept
wind running all the way through the Scriptures. But the place
where the idea of the wind is being understood in relationship
to what you and I are recognizing is God's covenant manifestation
to His people is in as Ezekiel chapter 37 and you don't have
to go there because we don't want to deal with that yet but
in Ezekiel 37 where God is instructing Ezekiel to look into a valley
filled with very dry bones depicting the nature of Israel at that
present time as well as the human race being without spiritual
life He commanded Ezekiel to speak to the bones. You guys
remember that? And then he told Ezekiel to call
for the four winds to breathe upon these bones which were slain
and the Spirit of God began to move. Now the word wind denotes
the sovereign power of God. You guys remember that? the sovereign
power of God. But God's spirit is not a wind. That is an unintelligible force. You need to know that an analogy
or a metaphor of the wind does not, as it were, circumscribe
the whole of the character of the spirit of God, just an attribute. So we need to know that the wind
then coming in Acts chapter two would describe, as it were, the
formation of the New Testament church, the formation of it.
Then we see the fire over in verse three and there appeared
upon Unto them cloven tongues like as a fire that's verse three
and the word cloven means divided So that upon everyone that was
in the house Every individual and it was said that there were
a hundred and twenty in there Each one of them had a cloven
or individual tongue of fire sitting upon their head. You
got that picture tongue of fire sitting upon there upon each
of them and the fire now becomes a metaphor for the presence of
God in the life of the people of God corporately as a group
and individually as a person corporately as a group and individually
as a person and we worked through that at length last week As we
saw in the Old Testament, and you have it in your outline,
the primary symbol of His nature in covenant is the fire. The
primary symbol of His nature in covenant is the fire. We looked
at Hebrews 13, 28 and 29, where God is said, and quoting out
of Deuteronomy several times, to be a consuming fire. And in
Hebrews 13, 28 and 29, we were exhorted to serve God with reverence
and godly fear. Under the rubric or analogy of
fire, God is to be viewed as someone to be dealt with seriously. He is not to be played with.
He is not to be belittled. We don't use analogies, excuse
me, of God in the buddy sense like we do in our present day
vernacular. The idea of fire connotes many things that we
looked at last week. I will not develop them fully,
but when the Hebrew writer says in Hebrews 12, 29, for our God
is a consuming fire, what he wants you to know is this. Under
the metaphor of fire, God is taking very serious his covenant
relationship with his people. The man or the woman that enters
into covenant with God, Must understand that you are entering
into a covenant with a God who is jealous for his glory That's
what Deuteronomy 4 says he is a consuming fire our God is a
jealous God I Won't redevelop that I only simply want to say
it would behoove any one of us who professes to be a true Christian
to understand that our relationship with God is based on covenant.
And being based on covenant, we are to take our covenant responsibilities
towards God, what? Very seriously. Because the analogies
are paradoxical. As we saw last week, you and
I by nature are like wood, hay and stubble. That's the first
symbol of God's manifestation to Moses under that metaphor
of the fire in the bush, the burning bush that was not consumed.
Moses would come to discover that the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob has now appeared to take the children of Israel,
bring them into the promised land, but their relationship
would be a God who is a consuming fire. Now, what that's designed
to do is sober you up. and bring you into a serious
consideration with this glorious being so that you don't play
games with God. If you work through the history
of Israel in relationship to the true and the living God,
they came to realize that God does not what? Play. He does
not play. The covenant into which they
were entered, they were entered in under some of the most gravest,
as it were, oaths, promises, pledges, promises that God made
to his people, of which he said to them, you are to obey the
Lord, your God, with all of your heart, so mind and strengthen
your neighbor as yourself. So we saw a lot of that. I'm simply
saying when you and I read Acts chapter two, and we see what
is called the promise of the spirit given to the church under
the analogy of wind, fire and cloven tongues, we are to take
these analogies and understand that we are dealing with the
same God in the New Testament, that ancient Israel dealt with
in the Old Testament. And under your outline, you have
the several aspects or meanings or significances of what the
fire was about. It is the sign of its presence.
It is the power of God. It represents the revelation
of God, the revelation of God. Fire, as we saw in Deuteronomy
4, verse 12, 33 and 36, was the place from which God's voice
emanated. and you did not see any shape
or form or similitude, you only heard a voice speaking out of
the fire. That was Israel's experience.
So the idea of the fire in the Acts context is very instructive
as well, because it's sitting upon the head of every individual
there. teaching you and I that just
as the fire was in the temple in the Old Testament, the fire
was in the tabernacle in the Old Testament. So the fire is
in the church today, but not merely in a corporate sense,
but also in an individual sense. So every believer is the temple
of the living God. Every believer is a tabernacle
of the most high God. Every believer ostensibly is
a miracle of grace by which this consuming fire coexists with
humanity in such a way that God can get glory out of it without
consuming us. Y'all got that? The very profound
concept. So it's not to be played with.
The idea of God being a consuming fire is not to be played with.
You and I are not thinking about fire in the kind of tragic, chaotic
sense of fire being out of control, being whimsical, being destructive,
filled with mayhem. That's not the point of fire.
The point of fire is that it is an authority that constitutes
a revelation and influence, a power of which we are to be very reverential.
God gave us fire on the practical level, and it has been very beneficial
for the human race, hasn't it? But fire is also very what dangerous
and that's God's nature. And so when you work through
the outline fire is also depicting God's guidance of his people.
We saw how that There was a pillar of fire by night and a cloud
by day that went with Israel. And whenever the cloud rose up
from the tabernacle and departed, the tabernacle was to move as
well in the very direction geographically that the cloud and the fire was
so that God was leading Israel through the wilderness to the
promised land. And so the spirit of God is called
the guidance of the people of God. He shall guide you into
all truth. He will bring you into the will
and purpose of God. So the spirit of God is under
the rubric of fire in the sense that he will give us light. He
will give us revelation. He will give us illumination.
He will give us understanding. He will guide us to where he
has called us to be. And we need to know that. The
last couple of ones that we didn't get to was the passion of God.
But I touched on that a bit. And it has to do with his jealousy.
Of which I think those of us at Grace have acquired a great
sense of respect and appreciation for many messages that we have
developed around that. And I'll state it just once again
and move forward because I want to get into the other three aspects
of our overview tonight. Um, I think that this is extremely
important because one of the grand metaphors in the scripture
of the relationship between God and his people is the metaphor
of what marriage. One of the grand metaphors of
the relationship between God and his people is the metaphor
of marriage. That is a quintessential metaphor. It is one of the, uh,
primary metaphors given in the Genesis account to underscore
relationship, right? Adam and Eve were not to have
a relationship outside of covenant. There was no idea of them just
merely dating, getting to know one another. No, they were created
and brought into union in the context of covenant so that it
could point to and depend the kind of relationship that God
has with his people. In other words, there is no relationship
that God would have with you and I in a saving way that is
non-covenantal. But you know how folks hang out
and talk about they know God for themselves and they have
a relationship with God kind of private and personal. That's
kind of the idea of dating God, you know, but not actually being
in natural covenant with God. And what God is saying is you
only have I known out of all the people of the earth, Israel.
And the church of the living God in the New Testament generation
has as its bride groom, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the idea of
a relationship with God apart from covenant is a non sequitur.
It doesn't exist. Am I making some sense? And so
that's the idea here too. And again, in the future, we'll
be able to pick that up more, but here's what God says to his
covenant people in the old Testament and the new Testament. I, the
Lord, your God, ma what kind of God that's right. He doesn't
play. And the purity of God under the
rubric of the fire can be clearly seen all through the Old Testament,
where in every prophetic book, the major prophets and the minor
prophets stood as God's lawyers, pleading with God's bride to
return to God because he is a consuming fire and you cannot get away
with whoredoms Perpetually right and so the idea of the fire as
we get ready to wrap up this part of it is something that
Tragically came into reality with Israel where God prophesied
over and over and over I will kindle a fire in you which will
consume you and Destroy you with the exception of a remnant and
only a remnant that my purpose might be fulfilled So powerful
was that, um, that warning and that judgment, which did come
upon Israel. When you and I read in the new
Testament, in the gospel of Luke and then the gospel of Matthews,
our Lord Jesus Christ said these words, and we're here at the
point of the, uh, eschatological purging and as well as the purity
of God. I think it's, uh, uh, chapter
Luke, uh, chapter 17 of the book of Luke chapter 17, verse two
and verse 49. He says, uh, I did not come to
bring peace, but a what? And he said, I came to do a bunch
of dividing. And he said, there has been a
fire already kindled. The fire has already been kindled,
the Lord Jesus said. Now, when he made that statement,
he was actually alluding to the consummation of the old covenant
relationship between Israel and God that would be finally consummated
at the cross of Jesus Christ. by Christ's death. He says, I
have a baptism to be baptized with, I have a cup to drink,
and I am affirming a fire that has already been started. And
he says that that fire will ultimately, this is the language of John
in John the Baptist in Luke chapter 3, he will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire. That fire would ultimately destroy
the nation of Israel in 8070 when the temple was destroyed
and they were scattered to the four winds. That fire would ultimately,
as it were, disseminate the nation of Israel and bring them out
from under that old covenant. That old covenant would be consummated.
Done. And if you know anything about
church history, what happened in 8070 was precisely that. The Roman Titus Destroyed Israel
just devastated it and burnt it to the ground and so the old
covenant Threat and warning had come to pass for a second time
for under the Babylonian Empire in 586 BC the same thing happened
Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Israel devastated the temple
burned it to the ground. This is our God who is a consuming
fire Israel then was done in terms of it being the steward
of the revelation of God, the steward of the revelation of
God. And of course, you under the concept of the purity of
God, you can read in John chapter 15, six, remember what Jesus
said? Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, my father
takes it away and cast it where? Into the fire. This is language
from our Lord Jesus Christ. And what he's describing is the
seriousness of a professing believer's relationship with God. There's
no place to stop. And then the final thing that
we looked at in our outline under the rubric of God being a consuming
fire is the eschatological purging of God. And I quoted that with
Luke chapter 3, 9, 17. John the Baptist said, when he
comes, he will have a fan in his hand. He will purge his floor
thoroughly. He will separate the wheat from
the chaff. John gave a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as that
consuming fire separating all the rebels from all of those
who were really looking for him. And one wonders how that actually
worked itself out. Well, it worked itself out first
and foremost by the preaching and teaching that Jesus Christ
did for his three and a half years. For his preaching and
teaching separated the believer from the non-believer. It separated
the hypocrites and the self-righteous Pharisees from those who were
truly seeking God. There was a fire that proceeded
out of the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ in the ministry
of His Word that brought about division. It was such a fierce
division that they ultimately crucified our Lord because of
it. And this same fire now has been
transferred from the Old Testament tabernacle in the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ for his three and a half years of ministry.
And it's now sitting on the heads of the folks in this upper room,
120 of y'all see that it's sitting on the head. You know what that
means as our outline is already implicated. And that's this in
the same fashion in which Jesus did ministry for three and a
half years, that same ministry is about to be recapitulated
in the life of the church. The church is merely the extension
of the person of Christ. So we are not to expect the church
to be any different in its ministry to the world than Christ was. So sitting upon the heads of
each one of the members in the church is a wonderful symbol
of many things of which you and I will enjoy when we unpack it.
But here's one great warning, one great sign, one great omen
to the nation of Israel. The church will perpetuate and
finish the process of judgment that our master affirmed and
brought to full fruition before his crucifixion. The church will
finish that by the very message that it preaches. It will bring
Israel into judgment. This is going to be the conflated
language that you and I will work through when we are at Acts
chapter 2, where the apostle Peter is explaining things like
the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood
before the great and notable day of our Lord shall come. And
we're wondering, what was that all about? That's metaphorical
language for the judgment aspect of the preaching of Christ that
had his ultimate fulfillment by him being put on the cross.
Do you remember what Caiaphas had said in Matthew chapter 28
or so? When he came to examine Jesus, he said to Jesus, are
you the son of God? And Jesus says, hereafter shall
you see the son of man coming in power and in great glory. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as
we go through the book of Acts, I want you to remember that prophetic
statement by our Lord, because what you're going to see in the
book of Acts is Christ coming in power and in great glory.
And every time an individual or a group of men or the church
preaches the gospel and reeks response among the people of
Israel, they're going to have to hear those echoing words of
our master. Are you the son of God? In a
moment, you shall see. Because our master will have,
as it were, risen from the dead and came back in manifold fashion
through his own body, the church, which would be taking up his
ministry. Now, the last aspect of it we're saying is eschatological.
The fire represents the eschatological purging of God is because, as
I said, when you close out the book of Revelation chapter 20,
verses 11 through 15, what you have described in those verses
is the great judgment, don't you? And I saw a great white
throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and
the heaven fled away. And there was found no place.
That means you can't hide nowhere. And I saw them, verse 12, and
I saw those, the dead, small and great, stand before God.
And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which
is the book of life. And the dead were judged out
of those things which were written in the books according to their
works, verse 13. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them. And they were judged every man according to their
works, verse 14. And death and hell were cast
into the lake of what? which is the second death. In
your outline what you have under eschatological purging of God
is what is called the final solution. Do you see that? The final solution. The way Peter describes it in
2nd Peter chapter 3 is a great conflagration wherein the heavens
and the earth, present heavens and earth will be on fire. There
will be a fire that will consume the present heavens and earth,
and God will recreate this in new heavens and new earth. So
fire carries all the way through to the end. Are you guys following
me? Very, very, very serious language
around the metaphor of the fire. So we'll leave that alone now
and we'll go to the next three points. You can go back to your
PowerPoint under the concept of the formation of the church,
the formation of the church. Now we're going to be looking
at some verses scattering throughout the whole of the book of Acts
to give you an idea of the structure of the church because I want
you to get this so when we start going through the passages more
particularly I won't have to develop this but how does the
book of Acts actually form itself in terms of the ecclesiastical
structure of the church well fundamentally in these three
or four ways first the word of transformation Then the impact
of the resurrection. Thirdly, the exaltation of Christ. Fourthly, the development of
the doctrines of grace through the gospel. And let me explain
what I mean by the formation. The formation is what the church
begins to fully develop itself into. And in your outline, leave
that there. In your outline, here's what
we say. The formation of the church really becomes a crystal
centric process. Repeating the calling confirmation
and character of Christ's ministry himself Y'all got that the church
merely does the same thing that Christ did Once he started his
ministry and finished it for in the same way that Christ Was
first baptized You remember that and the Holy Ghost came upon
him. Remember that and And the father spoke from heaven and
said, this is my beloved son. Remember that? That was the initiation,
the announcement of Christ's ministry. From that point, he
was driven by the spirit of God into the wilderness, right? He
was tested for 40 days, right? And then he went straight to
work for three and a half years, didn't he? Well, the church here
is modeling that same thing. Because the head of the church
has told the body to wait, didn't he? For what? Baptism! In the same way that Christ had
to wait for baptism. Upon baptism, you will then be
qualified with the resource necessary for you to be The extension of
who he is, that is the son of God, the revelation of the invisible
God, the church then being the body would then follow in his
footsteps doing what he did because it would be empowered with the
same resource that he was. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? Simply recapitulating the ministry of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is why for some of us in the development of what
we call eschatology, the last week of the 70 weeks of Daniel,
we have seen that the first three and a half years of that last
week corresponded to the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
the last three and a half years of that last week corresponds
to the ministry of the church, which is his body. The times,
times and half a times is the whole New Testament period where
in the church deals with tribulation after tribulation after tribulation,
bearing record to the glory of God, calling sinners out, establishing
them in the faith, in the face of persecution and trial. The
head and the body operating as one. But how does that work itself
out just in the formation of the church? Well, the word of
transformation, what are we talking about by the word of transformation?
We're talking about the impact that the Spirit of God is going
to make in the life of the church at the very outset of the ministry
of which it could have never made without the presence of
the Spirit of God. The word of transformation. We're
talking about when Christ said, You shall be endued with power
from on high. So shall you be my what witnesses. That's actually up to one verse
eight. You got in your outline. If you have your Bibles, they'll
listen to what it says, but you shall receive power after that.
The Holy ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses
unto me. What are they witnessing to Christ?
And the object of their witness or the scope of their witness
will be Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and where? The uttermost parts
of the world. When we talk about the word of transformation, we're
talking about the dynamic of the Spirit of God as it was manifested
in Peter's first sermon. I mean, Acts chapter 2 describes
Peter standing up, explaining the prophecy, the promise, and
the purpose of the presence of the Spirit of God. Isn't that
right? And under his explanation of this sign and wonder that
drew all these people who were already in Jerusalem for Pentecost
to their presence, Peter now explains to them the prophecy
of Joel and then he begins to preach to them the person and
work of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit of God works through
that preaching to break people down to such a degree as we don't
see in this present church age. Last time you saw a person stand
up in the middle of the church and say, men and brethren, what
must I do to be saved? That's a work of the spirit of
God. It doesn't happen today. Are you hearing me? You know
what we have to do? Cudgel people. We have to allure people. We
got to beg people. How many of y'all want to be
saved today? Peter didn't have to do that. The spirit of God
got a hold of people and brought them to a crisis Are you hearing
what I'm saying? There was not only a transformation
in the 120 in the upper room There was a transformation in
Peter and then there was a transformation in those that heard him The text
said being pricked in their hearts. They said men and brethren. I
want to get right with God That's a word of transformation, isn't
it? Is that a word of transformation? And so then not only is it a
word of transformation, but then we have what is called the impact
of the resurrection, the impact of the resurrection. When you
go through the book of Acts, Acts chapter four, verse 33,
if you can pull it up, if you can do both of those, I appreciate
that you're going to find that the fundamental message that
the apostles preached was the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now, again, I'm not going to deal with that right now. When
we actually get into the text, I'll explain to you why. But
wherever the apostles went, they preached the resurrection of
Christ. And with great power gave the
apostles witness of the what? Of the Lord Jesus. Now watch
this. And great grace was upon them
all. So now what was so critical about
their making mention of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, it had
everything to do with their testimony, with his testimony, with his
father's glory, and with the salvation of those people who
were listening. You and I are removed 2,000 years
away from the events that transpired wherein Jesus took on a human
nature, lived, gave a perfect witness of his deity, gave a
perfect witness to his father, and they still killed him, and
they thought they were done with him. The resurrection proved
that they weren't done with him. And every time someone said that
Jesus rose again from the dead, it created the stir all over
again of which the Jewish people were trying to snuff out. that
testimony that Christ had brought to them, and they couldn't get
rid of it. They couldn't get rid of it.
They told the disciples, do not preach or teach the resurrection
in this mess. Ladies and gentlemen, they didn't
have a problem with the doctrine of the resurrection. That was
part of their cardinal theology. They believed in the hope of
the resurrection. That's all kinds of Old Testament
passages. What they didn't care for was
the resurrection of one man. For the resurrection of Christ
affirmed his claims to be Messiah and to be the God-man who came
from glory. Which means his resurrection
indicts the whole nation. Am I making some sense? the power
of the resurrection. And what the Spirit of God does
with that even today, when Christ is preached under the anointing
and God is pleased to save, He makes the implications of the
resurrection so vividly clear to a sinner who needs salvation. For if God raised His Son from
the dead, He raised Him from the dead because He was the only
righteous man in the world, and because he was the only righteous
man in the world and his death was a substitutionary, vicarious,
penal judgment from God on the behalf of guilty sinners, sinners
now have hope for heaven through him. Am I making some sense? When the this is why doctrine
has to be taught. That's one of the points in this
outline under formation. You have to teach doctrine. You
can't just, you know, spot out terms. The resurrection means
nothing if we don't understand the necessity of it, the scope
of it, the design of it, its implications. But the Jews did.
The Jews did. And we will wonderfully see how
in God's mercy, what he told this hundred and twenty to do.
was to stay at Jerusalem. Stay there. You got that? Stay
there. Don't you leave Jerusalem. Because
my witness is going to start here. And that constitutes God's
mercy as well as his judgment on them. So the word of transformation
is clearly seen in Acts 2. The impact of the resurrection
runs all the way through the text. the exaltation of Christ. This is really what you and I
call gospel preaching. It doesn't matter what you are
preaching. If Christ is not exalted in it, it's not gospel preaching.
If a man or woman is not made to know Christ better after the
preaching, Christ was not exalted. And so what you're gonna see
through the book of Acts are the apostles explaining that
the signs and the wonders that they performed were signs and
wonders to affirm the authority of Christ that his father had
given him, who was at the right hand of God, executing the very
will of God of which he said he would do when he went back
to heaven. A wonderful portion of this is in Acts chapter 3. Look at Acts chapter 3, verses
13 through 16. I want you to just see this one account. You
remember, this is at the time when that lame man was at the
temple gate called Beautiful, begging for money. And Peter
was broke, and John was broke, and Peter fastened his eyes on
him, verse 4 says, said, look on us. And he gave heed to them
expecting to receive some money. So you know when people are begging
for money, they want money, right? So there you go. Then Peter said,
silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give unto
thee in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right
hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received
strength, right? He leaps up, he starts walking, he enters
into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. So
he got a religious folk in trouble again because the same Jesus
that was incarnate walking the streets of Palestine was doing
this very thing while he was here and he's doing it again.
And he's telling these folks that he healed affirmations of
his Messiahship going to the temple. Show these folks in the
temple that Messiah has come. And this stirs up all kinds of
trouble. And here's what Peter says, which is powerful. Listen
to how Peter deals with this. Peter says over in verse 13,
now I'm loving this language. Here's what Peter says over in
verse 13, the God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob, the God
of our fathers have glorified his son, Jesus. See that? The God of Abraham and of Isaac
and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son
Jesus. What is Peter doing? He's taking
the miracle of this lame man, which becomes a visible witness
to everybody in the temple, and associating it with the objective
of God the Father in glorifying the Son. Do you remember what
the Son said in John chapter 12 or chapter 13? He said, Father,
glorify me with thine own glory. That's what I desire, that I
would enter into that glory with you, for in my glory is your
glory, and in your glory is my glory, since I have accomplished
the work for which you have sent me to do. The Father's job after
Christ accomplished eternal redemption and goes back to heaven, the
Father's job now by the Spirit is to glorify the Son. And so
the miracles that you see taking place in the book of Acts is
designed to call people's attention to the fact that Jesus is no
longer dead. He's no longer dead. So the miracles
are never and aim in themselves. They are never designed to cause
people to say, oh, look at the power of the preacher or the
power of the prophet or the... This is completely Christless
in nature. You guys got that? It's completely
Christless in nature. So the formation of the church
constituted the power of transformation, the word of transformation, the
impact of the resurrection, the exaltation of Christ. And then
finally, what I want you to see clearly is that the formation
of the church, and this took about 20 years from the time
of Christ's resurrection to the time where the ministry through
the Book of Acts is primarily given emphasis to Paul. And we'll
talk about what I call the Peter-Paul transition. There's a Peter-Paul
transition that takes place in the middle of the Book of Acts,
a Peter-Paul transition. And we'll deal with that. It's
called a crisis, a crisis. And what that has to do with
is the Old Testament believing saints, the Jewish brethren struggling
with, and we're gonna get into this when we deal with our next
point, struggling with the fact that God has now initiated the
new covenant. And the new covenant is operating
while all of the old covenant trappings are still in place.
And all of the rulers who are still operating out of that old
paradigm are having to face a new reality occurring simultaneously
while the old reality is fading away. That's Hebrews chapter
9, the last verse. Hebrews chapter 9, the last verse. Let's take a look at that. That's
around verse 13. I think it's Hebrews 9, 13. Listen to what
the language says there. And this is part of the crisis
that the church entered into. Listen to this language. Here
it is, Hebrews 8, I'm sorry, Hebrews 8, 13. The writer to
the Hebrews is explaining the new covenant, having put away
the old, and he says in verse 13, in that he said a new covenant,
he hath made the first what? Now that which decayeth and waxes
old is what? Ready to vanish away. And he
uses a very advised verb there because that verb denotes the
historical fading away of the influence of Judaism. The historical
fading away of the influence of Judaism over the first 20
years that the gospel was being preached after Christ rose from
the dead. Y'all got that? So, this will come under the
frustrations of growth. But go with me in your Bible
now to Acts 15. I want to just share one point under the development
of the doctrines of grace through the gospel. In Acts chapter 15,
we have our first synod where the Jewish apostles are struggling
with what they've been hearing is the proclamation of the gospel
in the mouth of their Jewish brother Paul. How be it Paul
has not officially identified himself with the men at Jerusalem. Paul has experienced the personal
revelation of Jesus Christ in his own life. He has been taken
up by a handful of Jewish brethren, Barnabas and Silas and a few
others. But God has driven Paul by his
spirit down another direction for reasons we'll get into that
are very human in nature when we get into the book. But over
time, the Jewish brethren, the Jewish apostles in Jerusalem,
Peter, James, John, and the others are hearing how Paul is preaching
what we would call free grace, a message of salvation that does
not require human works, our human effort, our human signs,
our yielding to and submitting to human formulas, our methodologies,
by which you get saved. And they're struggling with that.
Because the whole of Judaism was a system of symbols and signs
and types and metaphors, and as it were, emblems of salvation,
of which if a man didn't keep, he was in danger of not being
saved. And they struggle with that.
We can call that a kind of jealousy. So in Acts chapter 15, listen
to what the writer says. In Acts 15, this is the synod.
of the rulers. Acts 15 verse six and the apostle
and elders came together for to consider this matter. And
when there had been much disputing, see that word much disputing,
believe you me, they were disputing. Peter rose up and said unto the
men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made
choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bear them witness, giving them what? The Holy Ghost, even as
he did unto us. But no difference between us
and them, purifying their hearts by what? So Peter is using very
advised language. He's taking some of the Old Testament
sacerdotal language. Purification was all sacerdotal
language. This was part of the priesthood
language. This is part of the language that Jews understood.
Purification meant you went through a whole lot of external washings. of external observances, oblations,
in order for you to be accepted into the covenant family. But
Peter said it happened by the Holy Ghost through faith. It didn't happen by the efforts
of men through good works. The Holy Ghost washed them. The Spirit of God purified their
hearts by faith. This is a radical statement that
puts a death knell in the coffin of the worst religion that Israel
was holding to in terms of circumcision and law-keeping and Sabbath days
and washings and all of that stuff you can read about in Hebrews
chapter 6. Am I making some sense? And so Peter stands up boldly
and says, verse 10, Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke
upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor
we were able to bear? You talking about putting them
on blast? Oh, by the way, we didn't keep
this either. I mean, I know you're pretending we kept it, but we
ain't keeping this either. And God gave us grace. He gave us
grace when we tore it up and he gave them grace when they
didn't know it. He's exalting his grace, isn't he? It's a critical
truth, not only for them, but today, too. Here it is. Verse
11. Here's what Peter says, but we
believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved even as they. Y'all got that? So right there
is a summation of what I meant by the development of the doctrines
of grace through the gospel. Peter stood up in this council
knowing that there would be men who would be averse to it, hostile
to a free grace message. He essentially defended the ministry
of Paul in Citus and Barnabas. He defended it because he saw
it himself. He saw how God had taken him
and placed him into the midst of the Gentile brethren. That
is Cornelius in that whole Italian band. He saw how as he was preaching
the gospel, he was not preaching circumcision. He was not preaching
good works. He was not preaching Judaism.
He was not preaching legalism. In fact, while he was preaching
Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost fell on them. before he can even
get a formula by which he can, oh, this is how you get the Holy
Ghost. Am I telling the truth? Remember,
the Holy Ghost is like the wind. That means he's what? Sovereign.
So Peter is shocked at this. It is, it did knock him backwards.
When he stabilized and overcame his stupefication, he said, well,
then who can, who can forbid these brothers from being baptized?
They didn't already got the Holy Ghost. So what the book of Acts
does, which we'll see as we work through it, is it demolishes
these hard line formulas that we love to lay on people, trying
to control the Holy Ghost. Are you following me? This one
was a necessary event because Peter now see this here is really
when we get there, this here is the transition. We're leaving
Judaism here. The Spirit of God will no longer
focus on the disciples in Jerusalem. We're leaving and we're headed
towards the ministry of the gospel through the mouth of the apostle
Paul and Timothy and Silas and others preaching free grace to
the Gentiles, because that's the direction that God would
have us to go. One verse, Acts chapter 28, 31. Acts 28, 31. This is the last verse in the
book of Acts for you. This gives us a sort of compendium.
Here it is, Acts 28, 31. Listen to the language. The apostle Paul has been liberated.
He's in his own house. He's at Rome. That's the goal.
He's at Rome. And here's what we are told in,
uh, acts 28 verse 23. And then we'll look at verse
21. And when they had appointed him a date, there came many unto
him into his lodging, his home to whom he expounded. What does
that mean? Teach and testify. What does
that mean? Preach the kingdom of God. Y'all
got that? Persuading them concerning who? Both out of the law of Moses
and the prophets from morning to evening that brother was long-winded
That's ministry, isn't it? That's when your cup is full
You can preach from morning to evening That's when the anointing
is such that that you can go, go, go and be careful because
we're going to work through this as we go through the book of
Acts. Cause folks like to give what I consider faulty definitions
of the concept of the kingdom to the kingdom of God has been
manifested in three stages with a fourth stage to go. But I would
have you to know the book of Acts is about the kingdom, the
kingdom. Thus you read it here, testifying
the kingdom of God. Look over verse 31, last one.
I'm starting verse 30 now Paul dwelt two whole years in his
own hired house And he received all that came in unto him preaching
what the kingdom of God got it and Teaching those things which
concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence and no man
forbidding him That's a wonderful way the book closes out It shows
you how the gospel has successfully established its projectory and
now is about to spread to the four corners of the world. That
was the formation. The formation is the word of
transformation, the impact of the resurrection, the exaltation
of our savior, Jesus Christ, the development of the doctrines
of grace through the gospel. Now, the next thing I want to
call your attention to is the frustration, frustration. And the frustration is in our
PowerPoint under two categories, but you have them in your outline
under four points. We'll be able to work on both.
The frustration. What was the frustration of the
church in the early days of its inception? Well, the frustration
were many, but there are two primary. The first of the frustration
was the opposition of Judaism and legal religion towards the
freedom and power of the gospel. That was a constant frustration
for Israel, for the church, constant frustration. If one were to take
frustration in a bad sense, we're not going to take it in a bad
sense. We're going to take it in an organic sense right now. Because when I say that it was
a constant frustration, I am telling you that it was part
of God's sovereign plan to utilize those resistance factors to actually
initiate the growth of the church. So, in your outline, you'll see
your outline basically corresponds to the way I have it, the church
on fire. What is the frustration? Why the opposition of Judaism
and legal religion towards the freedom and power of the gospel?
Because of the growth of the church. Because the church was
growing. So stay with me for a moment,
because this gets into the psychology of the thing. Because the church
was growing, there was this ongoing antagonism by the old system. Because the church was growing.
Because the church was growing. Now if we deal with this on a
very biological level, almost all growth in any sphere, and
I don't know unless you create an artificial sphere and realm
to exist in, almost all growth, any kind of growth you're going
to have, is going to have levels of frustration. because growth
inherently is dealing with change. Are you guys with me so far?
Growth inherently is dealing with change. In this context,
it's two systems that are in the same context geographically
and in terms of in terms of the nature of the object of God's
purpose with regards to the kingdom being present, and that is old
Judaism with the dynamic of the gospel being present among the
same people groups. This is why our Lord says, stay
in Jerusalem, right? Stay in Jerusalem. Well, for
us, as we work it through, we're going to see that Jerusalem,
Jerusalem is the place where God's ideal comes to full fruition. His ideal, because Jerusalem
is an ideal. It's a concept. It's not just
a geographical location. Jerusalem, for God, is God's
ideal people. His ideal city. His ideal dwelling place, Jerusalem. Are you guys following me for
a moment? Stay with me for a moment. It's not an accident. It's not
coincidental. It's not incidental. that Christ
is going to tell the disciples to stay in Jerusalem. Because
he knows that Jerusalem is the city, that is Christ, of the
great king. That Jerusalem is the quintessential
idea of God before the world began. That Jerusalem, the foundation
of peace, the city of righteousness, where the righteous king dwells,
the king of peace, really is God's eschatological Perfect
city that will ultimately come down from heaven from God. Are
y'all with me so far? stay in Jerusalem because Jerusalem
will be the place where Prophecy is fulfilled stay in Jerusalem
in Jerusalem will be the place where Jerusalem will grow and
Expand and touch the four quarters of the world people who will
come to know the true and the Living God will know that it
started where in Jerusalem and Y'all got that? Now when we deal
with that, I'll show you the prophetic implications and the
fulfillment. Several of them are there, but
this is the main point that God's intention is that Jerusalem be
the place where it begins. And so in your outline under
frustration of the church, it's growth. In Acts chapter two,
verse 41 through 47, you've heard it before, but I want you to
see it again. Acts chapter two, verse 41. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized and the same day they were added unto
them about what? 3,000 souls. So we have here in addition to
the church of 3,000 souls in one day, in one day. And it goes
all the way over to verse 47. Verse 47 says, praising God and
having favor with all the people and the Lord what? Added to the
church daily such as should be what? And then again, we read
in Acts chapter four, verse five, and let me start back at verse
two. And they laid hands on them and
put them in hole that is prison the next day for the preaching
of the gospel. Verse four, how be it many of them which heard
the word believed. And the number of the men was
about what? 5,000 men. So what you see happening
in the early stages of the church is a level of numerical growth,
numerical growth. If you'll notice on our PowerPoint,
go back to my PowerPoint sister. If you'll notice in the PowerPoint,
I make a distinction between a numerical growth and growth
in character. You'll see that. Under growth,
you see that? She just had it. Under growth, Acts chapter two,
verse 41 through 47, four, four, and then also Acts chapter six,
seven, but you see how I have numerical growth slash character?
You guys see that? All right, so let me talk about
that a little bit because this is important. Uh, the fallacy
that we have fallen prey to in America. Um, and, and Mr. Charles had Spurgeon talked about
this a hundred years ago, hundreds of years ago, 150 years ago.
Here's what he said. He says that, uh, Western Christianity
for the longest has fallen, fallen prey to the idolatry of largeness
numbers, the idolatry of numbers. It has fallen to the false assumption
that because you have great numbers, you are authentic or genuine
or real. And as a consequence, as the
devil often works, he will make a facsimile of the truth by producing
artificially the same thing that God did authentically. Are y'all
with me? All right, so here's what you
and I are going to do. We're going to recognize that
growth is indeed an aspect of God's glory that is essential
to the gospel. Growth is essential to the gospel
and it's essential to God's glory. Are y'all with me? Please don't
ever don't buy into the faulty notion as some do that you're
right because you're small. Are you hearing me? That's a
fallacy in itself and it's inconsistent fundamentally with the revelation
of the glory of God from Genesis to Revelation. For the revelation
of the glory of God from Genesis to Revelation under what you
and I have learned as biblical theology is that God created
man in his image and in his likeness and he sent unto them to be fruitful
and to what? And we're not merely talking
Adam and Eve, we are talking Christ and the what? Because
in the context of the growth and multiplication, the glory
of God is spread. Are you guys hearing me? In the
context of growth and multiplication, ideologically speaking, the glory
of God is spread. So part of your ecclesiology,
And part of your comprehension of biblical eschatology is to
believe in growth. Believe in growth. If you believe
in growth on an ecclesiological level, an ecclesiastical level,
also believe in it in a soteriological level. So let's make this thing
a little personal because I want to make sure we grasp this because
here, inherent in this is where we will see the frustration.
Let's say hypothetically that there was a lot of growth in
numbers. People came to the Christian faith, but the Christian faith,
uh, substantively was no different than the old Judaism that the
rest of the Jews held to. There would be no persecution.
There would be no conflict. There would be nowhere warfare.
There would be no adversity because there would be no antithesis
of the old versus the new. Am I making some sense? Judaism
would have loved all the Gentiles coming in, being circumcised
and being baptized and made proselytes for Judaism and then operating
out of a work system. What Judaism couldn't understand
was how that out of the same soil and out of the same stock
came up a new fruit that basically shed the old outer skin of Judaism. They were struggling with Christianity,
claiming to be Judaism fulfilled. Are y'all with me so far? They
were struggling with Christianity, claiming to be Judaism fulfilled.
See, Christianity wasn't talking about being a completely alien
system. Christianity was saying, hey,
you Jewish brethren, your book says this about why we are doing
this. Hey, The prophecies that your
Old Testament writings affirm and declare concerning how that
the Gentiles shall be brought into the kingdom of God. That's
what's taking place here as we're getting ready to work through.
And so what they struggled with was the what I call the first
phase of eschatology. And I told you that eschatology
operates in two modes. What is the term eschatology,
ladies and gentlemen? The study of end time things,
right? Eschaton the word can be translated end completion
and We recognize that the Eschaton takes place both in terms of
Old Testament and New Testament this is the damning element the
damning element of Of the preaching of the Apostles in the book of
Acts. What is the damning element? the damning element is that the
Old Testament prophets said that In the last days Messiah shall
come in the last days He shall pour out his spirit upon his
sons and his daughters and his children and his young men and
his maidens They shall prophesy and dream dreams and have visions
in the what days last days Y'all got that When did those last
days begin? When Messiah came no when Messiah
came He came at the end of the last days. The last days of what? The old Jewish system. The Old
Testament system. The Old Testament system. So
every time a person became a believer in Jerusalem, in Judea, you know
what they were implying by that conversion? The end of the old
system. And as that thing began to grow
and fill Jerusalem, as we're going to see, the struggle that
the rulers had was, hey, you guys are filling Jerusalem with
this doctrine. Well, that's what Jesus said
when he told your high priest, your fake high priest, Caiaphas,
just wait a minute. When I go to glory, you will
see the Son of Man coming in power and great glory. You won't
be able to stop what I'm doing. And Gamaliel was smart enough
to say, hey, you better leave that thing alone. If this thing
is of God, you better leave this thing alone. You better get your
doctrine. You better get your eschatology right. And Judaism
has been struggling against that up to this day, aren't they?
Struggling with the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning
Messiah having their culmination in the person of Jesus. But let
me deal with it on a psychological level, you know, a more, what
I would call a character level. While numerical growth is critical
and essential, uh, for God's glory, because there are a lot
of practical functions to grow. What our master said in Matthew
seven becomes very advise it for us. Go with me and your Bible
to Matthew seven. We're almost done with this in
Matthew seven, this is going to be critical. So I think this
is a very important word to the present new Testament church,
especially the churches that log themselves in numbers. And
they do. as if numbers are ending themselves
in a positive proof, proof positive of the authenticity of the ministry.
But here's what our Lord said in the area of growth. In Matthew chapter seven, we're
going to look at verses 15 through 20. Here's what he said. He said, beware of false prophets,
which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves. I want you to mark this next
line. You shall know them by their numbers. Got it? So here's what he said. You can't positively discern
the error or truth of a ministry by its numbers, only by its fruit. And then he begins to give the
analogy Again, an agricultural analogy, an organic analogy that
is inviolable as a fundamental principle, unless we want to
get into genetically modified organisms. And I already told
you, God ain't into that, right? The devil is, but not God. God
works with the authentic article. He does not mix seeds. Every
seed-bearing herb brings forth fruit of its own kind. If the
incorruptible seed gets sown, then incorruptible fruit will
be produced. If corruptible seed is sown,
corruptible fruit is produced. Is that true? That's why I tell
people no one is saved through lies. Listen to it. You shall know them by their
fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, in like manner, this
is a parallel clause. So every good tree bringeth forth
what? That's a law. That's a law. Every good tree brings forth
good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth what? Jesus says
you can know it By the moral ethical character that manifests
itself from the doctrine they teach You got that you can know
the fruit of the false prophet in the false teacher by the moral
ethical character that emerges out of their teaching because
their teachings while it may often have a periphery of truth
and The substance of it is covetousness, as Peter said, and the result
is carnality and selfishness and personal aggrandizement and
glorying in secular carnal things. This is true. This is true. Even so, every good tree brings
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth what? Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is what?
You know what that means? Israel, in the days of Christ,
was not a good tree. For it was what? Hewn down. Remember what John says? Now
is the ax laid to the root of the tree. That was another eschatological
warning concerning the nature of Messiah's work. By his death
on Calvary's tree, he put an end to Judaism. Remember Matthew
chapter 21, the last verse? The kingdom of God will be taken
from you and given to a people bearing forth the what? Fruits
thereof. These are simple principles and
critical principles, too. Because as we learned last Sunday,
that which has been is and that which that which has been is,
and that which is to be, even that has already been, so that
there's nothing new. We have to be careful that we are not
falling prey to faulty litmus tests as to what constitutes
true, right? We have to be careful. So let's
get to our last one, and then you and I will be able to get ready to jump into the study
of the Book of Acts next week and really enjoy what the, what
the text will teach the fulfillment, the fulfillment. Now, you know,
I'm making a fairly big statement. You can go back to your PowerPoint
to sister. I believe there's a fulfillment and we kind of
looked at it, uh, toward the end of, um, the book of acts. And for me, the fulfillment is
that, uh, the gospel intention has always been both in the old
Testament and the new that through the spirit, the stewardship of
the gospel would be transferred to the Gentiles. Because in God's
eyes, when you properly exegete scripture, he does not make this
perpetual and non-ending distinction between Jews and Gentiles. When
you allow the scriptures to speak, what you comprehend is one church
made up of both Jews and Gentiles, which is the Israel of God. When
you properly allow New Testament theology, particularly Pauline
theology, to speak simply and clearly to you. What Paul says
is, when you allow the Spirit of God to give you a Christocentric
method of interpretation, you can go back to the Old Testament,
read those passages, and understand them in New Testament light,
and stop falling prey to thinking that these are merely Jewish
prophecies to be fulfilled in a literal sense to the Jewish
people. he gives some critically radical interpretations of this
in Romans chapter 9. So you see four things here as
we talk about the fulfillment the Gospels intention through
the Spirit of God to be stewarded by the Gentile churches conformity
to Christ of the Gentiles faith by hearing and headed to Rome
and then to all the world. That's going to be the projectory
of the Spirit of God in his missional work. Because the book of Acts
is really missional, you guys. It's about missions. In fact,
that's what the church is about. I'm glad I'm done here. If you
and I are going to actually get a real handle on why God raised
up his church, a vital church is going to be a church who is
ultimately missional in his understanding of his existence. For a church
to miss that point is for that church to fail to grasp the central
pulse of God's glory, which is to be made manifest to all nations.
For a church to fail to understand that missions constitutes the
central pulse of God for his glory to be manifest manifested
to all nations means that you and I are going to become myopic.
And what I mean is you're going to have a tunnel vision. You're
going to be short sighted. And the danger of tunnel vision
and short sightedness is Judaism. You got that. I remember hearing
a Jewish brother just about a month ago arguing for the fact that
Judaism is not a vital missionary work. He literally said, this
is what he said. He says, our business is not to save everybody. Our business is not to spread
Judaism to the world. If a Gentile becomes a convert
to Judaism, fine. Our business is to save our ethnic
Jewish brethren. Got that? Well, hold on. That makes all the sense in the
world. So I'm gonna close out on some points of application
here for us so we can get it because this this falls back
Under it. I don't want her to go back to it. But this does
fall back under the category of growth But we'll see when
we work through the outline you and I when we're saved God calls
us to grow doesn't he? Does he call us to grow? With
that he is calling us to frustration Does he call us to frustration?
because the frustration of growth requires the death of the old
and the ascendance of the new, which is a struggle because both
Judaism and Christianity dwells in one place, our nature. Did I make a good application?
Of course I did. Of course I did. You got it? Lord, I want to grow. You better know what you're asking. You better know what you're asking.
Now, you're asking the right thing because God will be glorified
in your growth. Growth is an affirmation of life.
No dead thing grows. When you've learned all you can
learn, you're dead. When you've done all you can do, you're dead.
When you've influenced all you can influence, you're dead or
you're dying. So our master on his way to the
temple for the last time in Mark chapter 11 was hungry for real. As in his divine nature, he has
always been. For his glory. Hungry for his
glory to be shared with and participated with by his people. So he has
always likened his people as under trees of righteousness. Is that true? Which of which
he expects them to bear much what fruit And to be so plentiful
plentiful of that fruit in its season that even when he comes
along To pluck some fruit to eat. He expects it to be fruit
berry Am I telling the truth? This is analogy that runs through
the minor prophets in the Old Testament and the Old Testament
prophets as well. David says, and they shall still be bearing
fruit in their old age. That's a messianic emblem of
how once a person is authentically saved, there's no such thing
as a believer who doesn't bear fruit. That's true. And so what I'm getting at is
this by way of application, you and I will see it in the book
of Acts, the struggle for the church to grow up out of the
old system into the fullness which is in Jesus Christ so that
that fullness can be shared with Sinners from every nation around
the world They're not going to just walk out of Jerusalem into
Judea into Samaria into the other most parts of the world It's
not gonna happen It's gonna take a lot of heat For God to move
his church Out into the world. Are y'all with me? And you know
what that means? By way of application to you
and I, if we are going to be a church that fulfills our calling,
if we're going to be a believer that fulfills our calling, God's
going to have to grace you to die so you can bear fruit so
that that fruit can be available to lost sinners by way of evangelism,
by way of missionary work, by way of outreach, By way of laying
down your life for us. Am I making some sense now watch
this and it won't happen Unless we are willing to die That that
would be an evangelical way of saying submitting to the holy
ghost submitting to the spirit of god submitting to the spirit
of god When you start telling the truth under the anointing
people hate you You have to be able to love people
beyond their hatred of you. Am I telling the truth? We don't
see some of this also. That's why those folk didn't
want to go in the promised land. Well, that's part two. Do you see those cats? I ain't
going in there, man. Let's head on back to Egypt.
How come? Because they needed a power greater
than themselves to actually accomplish what? God was calling them to
accomplish. They couldn't even begin to imagine
taking the promised land because they were so stuck on themselves.
See the application? So Psalm 1843 through 45 prophesy
of Christ being the head over the Gentiles. Isaiah 60 verses
1 through 5 do the same thing. The Gentiles show trust in your
life. Matthews 21, 42 through 44 is the parable of the vineyard
taken from the Jews, given to the Gentiles. Romans 9, 24 through
25, Paul gave a very interesting prophecy. I'll close right there.
I want you to look at it. Let this mess with your thoughts.
Here's what Paul says as he's arguing with his Jewish brethren
in Romans 9 over the doctrine of election Because a misinterpretation of
the doctrine of election makes it appear like God has failed
his purpose for the Jews What Paul was saying to his Jewish
brethren in Rome was no God didn't fail Israel did his part Israel's
part is done as a nation God didn't fail the idea that the
prophecies in the Old Testament that Israel would be like the
sands of the sea and like the stars in the sky That prophecy
is being fulfilled Just because you don't see it in in national
Judaism or ethnic Judaism doesn't mean the prophecy is not being
fulfilled You haven't brought into the equation that God has
an elect people among the Gentiles who will be brought into that
Jewish Covenant that had its origins in Christ and the true
Israel will be manifested through that you guys got that Listen
to the language. Let me see if I can make this
good in Romans chapter 9 verse 24 And it will just go through
verse 27. Even us, now let me start back
up at verse 22. What if God willing to show His
wrath and to make known His power endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction and that He might
make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy
which He had aforeprepared unto glory. He describes the vessels
of mercy which He prepared before the world began with the objective
of them being glorified. Y'all see that? Is that a believer? Are you that vessel of mercy?
Watch this. Even us, whom he had called not
of the Jews only, but also of the what? As he said also in
the book of Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not
my people and her beloved, which was not beloved. What is he doing?
He's making reference to an Old Testament prophecy in the book
of Hosea chapters one and two. and making it apply to the Gentiles. But when you go to Hosea 1 and
2, you can't see that interpretation. It sounds like he's talking about
the northern ten tribes versus the two southern tribes. You
go, whoa. Well, New Testament revelation
sheds light on it. Paul, under inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, is saying God has always meant for his ideal Israel
to be a conglomerate. people from every nation So he
says in Ephesians chapter 2 he hath made the twain one new man
So making peace and as soon as we stop thinking in terms of
Jew Gentile and start thinking in terms of Christ the new man
will start having fellowship Y'all get that We'll start having
fellowship, because even the church is jacked up with this,
what I call fictitious division between Jews and Gentiles, because
we fail to see the largeness of Jesus Christ as the grounds
of our unity. Well, any church that's going
to fulfill its calling is going to rise above these false dichotomies
and realize that we have the privilege of calling men and
women from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, no respect
a person, male, female, anyone. into the kingdom of God so that
they enter into the inheritance and we all have the same head,
which is Christ. So we all have the same message
and we all have the same aspiration and desire and we are all of
the same family. And so no flesh glories in God's
sight. Am I making sense? Let's close
in prayer. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for your people. And as we
get ready to enter into the book of Acts, Lord, we're asking that
you give us enlargement of heart. So as we work through those passages,
we can see the Spirit of God doing something that is absolutely
fantastic and marvelous. But more than that, we want it
to be more than just historical. We want it to be revelatory in
our own soul, transformational in our own soul, to move us out
into obedience, to be willing to be tabernacles and temples
on an individual level, as well as a corporate level, to be ready
to tell men and women about Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God.
would be with us and be pleased to use us to declare your glory
all over the world. As we leave, give us traveling
mercies, we pray, prepare us to worship you on Sunday with
all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen. God bless you guys.