Well, this morning I'd like to
begin a series looking at the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts
is the history, the history of the Church, and as such it's
the history of us. It is our history written large. And it's our history because
it's the Lord's history. We rest on Him and in His name
we go. In the Book of Acts we have the
history of the first 30 to 35 years of the Church. But in a wonderful way it begins
with some very, very precious words, some precious instruction,
because as it begins, so it continues. The foundation of the Church's
existence is laid out here before us in these opening verses of
Acts, and nothing has changed, nor ever need to be changed. It's a glorious thing, isn't
it, to think that our Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
today and forever. And in Malachi he says, I change
not. He changes not. Therefore you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. This is a glorious history. It's a glorious history of a
victorious saviour who gave himself for his church. He shed his life's
blood, his body was broken, for his church. And it's a church
that is triumphant in this world. He will see the travail of his
soul and he will be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify
many because he bore their iniquities and he bore them away. The Church
is a standing miracle in this world. It's a standing miracle
seen by God's people as He opens the scriptures to us. What a
remarkable miracle we witness here, brothers and sisters. No
less a miracle than what we read in the Book of Acts, because
it's the same Lord Jesus Christ who does the gathering. It's
the same Lord Jesus Christ who moves the hearts of His people.
It's the same Lord Jesus Christ that gathers His people to Himself. and gathers His people together. I was just going to read the
first four verses of Acts, and we'll ask the Lord that He might
bless His Word to our hearts. Let's read them. The former treatise
have I made, O Theophilus. Paul had written both the Book
of Luke and the Book of Acts to this fellow called Theophilus. Theophilus seems to be some notable
person. His name means loved of God or
lover of God. He's made and he's written all
that Jesus began to do and teach. I love the fact that it's just
the beginning and the continuing is what we witness here. until
the day in which he was taken up after he, through the Holy
Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had
chosen, to whom also He showed Himself alive. These are the
acts of our Lord Jesus in the hearts of His people in all this
period of the Church, in all of His saving mercies. He shows
Himself alive after His passion, after His suffering, by many
infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days and speaking
the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. He shows himself
alive and he speaks to his people the things pertaining to the
Kingdom of God, and I love what verse 4 says, and being assembled
together with them. So that's what he does, doesn't
he? He shows himself alive, he speaks the things pertaining
to the Kingdom of God, he assembles together with them. That is the
promise of his gathered churches throughout time, that where the
church is gathered by him, he is there in our midst. Whether we see Him or not, whether
we appreciate His presence or not through the eyes of faith,
He's made the promise. He's done the gathering. He's
assembled together. He assembles together, assembles
them together. He gathers them together, this
scattered flock of disciples, and He's with them. And He commanded
them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for
the promise of the Father, which, saith He, you have heard of Me."
The promise of the Father, of course, is the Blessed Holy Spirit. It's through the Blessed Holy
Spirit that He gives these commandments and He does this work. through
frail and fickle men." As we begin Acts, it's good to think,
and we won't look at them in any detail today, but it is good
to think that in the very opening chapter of Acts we have those
promises of the Lord Jesus which you've just read, and alongside
it we have the Apostles in verse 6 to 8, They're asking him, in
verse 6, they're asking him, Lord will you now restore the
kingdom? There they were, standing in
the presence of He who was risen from the dead, whose kingdom
was not of this world, and they are thinking about a kingdom
which is an earthly kingdom. They are mistaken. this gathered
assembly. They are mistaken about His Kingdom,
the nature of His Kingdom. And we won't read it now, but
if you look from Acts 1.12 down to 1.26, you see the apostles
led by Peter acting out of reverence for God, acting out of obedience
as they thought to his word, but mistaken. Matthias was not
the twelfth apostle. God had one appointed to be the
twelfth apostle. I suppose what I want to highlight
is that in the midst of the beginning of Acts we have the glorious
promises of our Redeemer, the glorious promises of what He
is doing and what He will do to gather His Church together,
to get glory for Himself in this world. And we have the frailty
and the fickleness of man. And it's wonderful for those
who know something of their privacy to be reminded again that salvation
is of the Lord. It is His. It is His. It is His to direct. It is His to command. It is His to do with as He likes. I love what Isaiah 9 says about
our Lord Jesus Christ. It says the government will be
upon His shoulders. The government of what? The government
of anything you can ever think of is upon His shoulders. But for those of us who are entrusted
with preaching the Gospel, it's a wonderful thing to look out
on God's sheep. and think that the government
of the Church is on His shoulders, and He governs it perfectly all
the time, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Let us ask the Lord to guide us. Heavenly Father, we do pray
that You would guide us and lead us into Your truth, that the
Blessed Holy Spirit might come sent by you and sent by the Father,
and take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and reveal them
unto us, that we, Heavenly Father, might have our eyes turned away
from the things of this world and the thoughts of this world
and the thoughts of ourselves, and we might have our eyes fixed
upon Him who is the Author and the perfecter of faith. O our Father, we thank You that
we can come to You in Your Son's precious Name and ask and plead
with You that You might honour Your Word to Your people this
morning, that we might see Your Son and see something of his
glory and something of the government upon his shoulders. We pray for
your blessing upon us, Heavenly Father, that you might take your
words and make them spirit and make them life to our souls again
this morning. For we pray in his name and for
his glory. Amen. So I was hoping this morning
to look at those things that we have just briefly touched
on there, the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ comes to His people
and He shows Himself alive by many infallible proofs, that
He comes in showing Himself alive and He speaks of the things pertaining
to the Kingdom of God. that He assembles together with
them and He commands and instructs them in the things of God and
He leads them. And that's how the Church in
Acts is laid, the foundation of the Church is laid out before
us. And again I remind you that when
you come to the books of the scriptures and especially the
books in the New Testament, it is just so important to tread
carefully and prayerfully over the opening verses, because foundations
are laid there upon which the rest of the books are built. They are precious foundations. And if we struggle, blazer in
the books with something that we don't understand, we can take
it back to that foundation and see how it aligns with that.
We understand scripture through understanding other scriptures. And as I said earlier, history
matters. The history of God's people in
this world matters. Our history matters. The history
of Acts matters. We are reading a history book,
but it's an inspired history book. It's a history book, as
we'll see as we go on, that is extraordinarily selective about
what is given to us. But what is given to us is absolutely
everything that we need. We've been given everything that
we need for life and Godliness. We've been given everything that
we need in these blessed revelations of our great, great God. And
one of the wonderful things about the history of the church, the
history of God's people. is that so much of our lives
revolve around the perpendicular pronoun, don't they? I. I this
and I that and I want and I mean. The wonder of the history of
the scriptures is that it goes back as far as you can possibly
imagine to the foundation of the world and it goes ahead as
far as you can possibly imagine into eternity future, for whatever
that word means, forever and ever. So much of the troubles
of this life revolve around the fact that the foundation of an
eye is incredibly narrow and it only needs a little tiny puff
of wind, a little tiny shaking and it teeters and falls over.
But the foundation of God remains secure. The Lord knows those
who are His. And so Luke begins Acts, begins
this story of the church with a rehearsal, with a reminder
yet again of what happened in those extraordinary days from
the resurrection until the ascension. What we have before us here in
Acts goes up to the 40th day after the resurrection. In another
10 days we have the day of Pentecost and the disciples are asked to
wait in Jerusalem for that 10 day period. But this is repeated
again, isn't it? Evidence, as these infallible
proofs, as Luke gives them, they are written in the other Gospels. All of the other Gospels give
us the evidence of the Lord Jesus' resurrection and the acts that
He did. Not all of them, but some. So why? This is the fifth time
and there are others. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul speaks
of the activities of the Lord Jesus in witnessing to himself
after the resurrection. If we are reminded of it five
times, it must be important and it must be essential. Why? The first one is that the acts
of the Lord Jesus Christ between His Resurrection and His Ascension
are exactly the same as they are today, and they're exactly
the same as they always have been. The Church, as I said,
is His. It is His Church. He bought His
Church with His blood, and it's in the fruitfulness of the Church
The witnessing of the Church is all in His hands. He directs His disciples where
to go. He directs the time that is before
them. He directs the witnesses that
they are to speak to. He directs, as we'll see in Acts,
He directs specific people to specific places at specific times,
and remarkable things happen, like the eunuch. on the way back
to Africa. And he just so happens, as Philip
arrives, he just so happens to be reading Isaiah 53, and he
just so happens to be troubled about what Isaiah 53 means. And
Philip is there, Philip is there gloriously to witness to them.
The Lord directs those activities. And so often So often the people
in the church People who desire to be faithful, people who are
not acting with insincerity, become terribly mistaken when
they forget, fail to see what Peter was told on the Sea of
Galilee by the Lord Jesus. He said, you feed my sheep, you
feed my lambs. The lambs belong to Him. The sheep belong to Him. My brothers and sisters in Christ
here, you belong to Him. And He will lose none of His
own. He will care for them. The Church
belongs to the Lord and not to us. And one of the glorious things
about these opening verses in Acts is that He is the One who
takes responsibility. He is the One who takes responsibility
to be present, to gather them, to care for them, and He is the
One that gives the ability to the people rather than the Lord. He'll teach his people again
and again that salvation is of the Lord, every last little bit
of it. And so often we think that the
activities of the church are something that we must take rule
and control over, and so many churches spend so much of their
efforts controlling people. This is his church. Our job,
my job, is to witness to the Gospel and lead Him to care for
His people. Is He able to chastise His people? Is He able to bring wandering
sheep back into His fold? Is He able to reveal Himself
to them? Is He able to compel them by
His love and constrain them by His love? He's able to do all
of those things. He is the Christ. And He brings His sheep, as we
saw there, He brings His sheep, He assembles together with them,
He brings them together, and He keeps them. He keeps them
in the midst of trials and tribulations, and not only does He keep them
in the midst of trials and tribulations, He's assembled this group of
apostles together and told them to wait in Jerusalem, the most
dangerous place on planet earth for them. Because He's going
to be there with them. and no harm can befall the righteous. Through many tribulations we
enter the kingdom of the world and the Lord Jesus prayed in
John 17, He says, He prays to the Father, You don't take them
out of the world, but You keep them from the evil one. You keep
them by Your Word. You keep them in Your Word. He's come. to bring these apostles,
these scattered apostles, back to himself. And he's doing exactly
the same today. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
there is not a millisecond of your life where you aren't needing
to be kept by him. We're kept by the power of God
through faith. We are kept by Him and we have
no ability outside of that. Salvation is obviously a remarkable
thing. Salvation involves all of what
the Lord Jesus did in eternity and involves all of what He did
at the cross and it involves all of what He is doing right
now. Saved from the foundation of
the world, He became our surety in that eternal covenant that
He reveals to His people and He wove that robe of perfect
righteousness. He takes off the filthy rags
of our flesh and He puts on His people the fine men and garment
and He says there is no spot in you. his bride as we saw in St Solomon. He absolutely adores his bride
and he does everything for them all the time. As I said earlier,
the government is upon his shoulders. The government of this world,
the government of his church, the government of his witnesses,
the government of the fruitfulness of his testimony. And God's Witnesses,
God's servants, as we see in Acts again and again, are weak
and frail. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, this treasure of God in earthen vessels, just an empty
earthen vessel, easily broken, easily discarded by men, easily
ignored by men as meaningless and insignificant. But for his
church and his gospel, it's his means of gathering his people
together. He'll do it as we said. by showing
himself to be alive, by speaking the things pertaining to God.
I can speak and speak and speak and speak, and God's preachers
can speak and speak, and the Lord Jesus himself can speak
and speak and speak, and yet the Word comes with power as
the Holy Spirit takes it, and God's people are brought to Him
and they believe. And God's people, having seen
Him alive and heard of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of
God and having Him assembled with them, they cannot not believe
the Gospel, brothers and sisters. They must be brought in. This
other sheep, this other sheep that He spoke about in John 10,
He said, I must bring them in. What a glorious promise. He gathers
his honor. who gathers his own, as he says
in Zechariah, not by might nor by power but by my spirit, by
my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. And he speaks of the great
Zerubbabel, our great Lord Jesus Christ, king over his people. He said the hands of Zerubbabel
have laid the foundation of this house. He's laid the foundation
of this house. His hands will also finish it
and when there are cries unto it, what are the cries? They
are grace unto it. Grace. It's built by sovereign
grace, brothers and sisters. I love what Zechariah says. He
says, in his hands is the plumber. He directs the building. The
building is always built perfectly. People trouble themselves, don't
they, and think that the Church of God is doing poorly in this
world. The Church of God, brothers and
sisters, is doing just fine in this world. It always is. The government is upon His shoulders.
The Church is this precious, precious body. Why don't you
turn to Ephesians chapter 5. I love how in Ephesians Often,
again and again, it's a story, a glorious story of the Church,
and Ephesians begins with the declarations of God in His predestinating
love and His sovereign hand over His people, that those that are
accepted in the Beloved were accepted from eternity, they
are sealed in time, they belong to Him, they are loved of Him.
And unto him, he says in 3 verse 21, unto him be glory in the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. But in chapter 5, he has that
glorious description, and it's about husbands and wives. But
let's read the parts of it that are about our Lord Jesus Christ
and the Church, because that's what he says, isn't it, in verse
32. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ
and the Church. And he says in verse 23, Christ
is the head of the Church, and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject
to Christ. And verse 25, even as Christ
also loved the Church and gave himself for it. Down in verse
29 he speaks of him nourishing and cherishing the Lord, the
Church. He nourishes and cherishes His
Church because, verse 30, we are members of His body, of His
flesh and His bones. At the end of verse 31 there's
a remarkable statement, the two shall be one, It's a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. That's what he's
speaking about, isn't it? Christ and the Church. And we speak the Gospel. We speak
the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. We speak the
truth in love, in 4 verse 15, that people may grow up into
Him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom
the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working
in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto
the edifying of itself in love. It is His body. It is His living body. He shows Himself to be alive. He speaks of the things pertaining
to the Kingdom of God. He makes it effectual in our
hearts through the Holy Spirit and He uses men to do it. What a remarkable opportunity
the Risen Lord Jesus had in Jerusalem to display His glory and His
victory and His Messiahship beyond doubt before all of those people. He could have He could have gone
into Jerusalem and stood on the top of the temple and gathered
Pilate and Herod and that other million people that were there
and said, here I am, and showed him his dark prints and showed
him the spear scar in his side, showing
him his wounds. He could have performed all sorts
of miracles. Brothers and sisters, bear in
mind that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, every single
resurrection appearance of the Lord Jesus was to his people. Never once did he do it, and
he left in the hands of his witnesses the declaration of who he is
and what he is doing in this world. The reality is that it
takes a miracle of sovereign grace by the Holy Spirit to turn
the hearts of people to Him. No amount of evidence in the
world, no amount of arguing and debating is ever going to convince
people. They will be convinced, they
will be convicted when God the Holy Spirit takes the things
of the Lord Jesus and He shows them to us. And He'll show them
to His people through His Word. This precious, precious volume
that you hold in your laps right now. What a precious word from
God. We have before us the very truth
of God. We have the means by which God
speaks to the hearts of his people. I was telling June, as I've been
struggling for this last month on my bed of languishing, as
the Lord describes it, and I think of others who struggle far worse
than I have. I'm hopefully finishing soon,
but nevertheless I have found this sickness a time of remarkable
refreshing. The number of times I've had
sweet, sweet opportunities. to have fellowship with the Lord
in His Word, and I couldn't do anything else. But I was telling
June, it was remarkable, I was reading Psalm 41, I'm sure I've
spoken on it, and we've read it many times, I was reading
Psalm 41, verse 3, the other day, and it says, the Lord will
strengthen him upon the bed of languishing, on the bed of sickness,
the Lord will strengthen him. and thou wilt make all his bed
in his sickness." Isn't that remarkable? I think that's one
of the glorious things, isn't it? The scriptures are living
and active. and he takes a verse that speaks
directly to the situation that you're in at this time. And he
speaks with a power and he speaks with a clarity. That in many
ways is trivial, but in many ways is precious because of the
things that God's children go through. We have, as I said earlier, we
have in the existence of the Church this ongoing standing
miracle before men, this testimony of the Lord Jesus, the gathering
of His people together. And Paul begins, and I would
like to, as he in a sense directs us to, I would like to go and
rehearse some of the things in those other Gospels, because
I think they are very instructive. He begins, Luke, you can listen
if you like or you can turn to them. But he begins by talking
about this former treatise in Luke chapter 1. He begins, For
as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a
declaration of those things which are most surely believed among
us. The testimony of the Lord Jesus
are things that were surely believed among all of the people of the
early church. There was no disputation amongst
them. They were as one. Even as they
delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also having
had perfect understanding of all things from the very first.
Luke evidently had time to interview all these eyewitnesses, the apostles
and others, and of course he spent so much of Paul's ministry
as his as his witness, it seemed good to me to write thee in order,
most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. There are
things that are most surely believed among us and that they who are
God's children can know the certainty. That word certainty is also used
as a word for safety. There is safety in believing
the things and knowing the things that are most surely believed
among us. So he began Luke's Gospel. At
the end we have the remarkable passage and I'd like to read
much of it if I can because it is so wonderfully instructive
of this time between the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord
Jesus. And this is a glorious picture of it. And it speaks
of the two on the road to Emmaus. And it came to pass, 24 verse
15, that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus
Himself drew near and went with them. Isn't that a delightful
picture of our Lord Jesus? Isn't that a great thing to pray
for ourselves and others, that He might draw near and go with
us? But their eyes were holden that
they should not know Him, and He said unto them, What manner
of communications are these that you have one or the other as
you walk? and are sad. And one of them, his name was
Cleopas, answered and said unto him, Art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to
pass there in these last days? And he said unto them, What things?
And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was
a prophet mighty indeed, and word before God, and all the
people. and how the chief priests and
our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death and have crucified
Him. But we trusted that it had been
He which should have redeemed Israel. Besides all this, Today
is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain
women also of our company made us astonished, which were early
at the sepulchre. And when they found not his body,
came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive. And certain of them, Peter and
John, which were with us, went to the sepulchre and found it
even so as the women had said, but him they saw not. Then he
said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets have spoken. ought not the Christ to have
suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning
at Moses and the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself." That's exactly what
He's doing now, brothers and sisters. He is expounding unto
His people in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Whenever you go to the Scriptures,
the very first question to ask is, what is this saying about
the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified? And if you can't find
it there, go and wait and ask. it's there. The problem is not
that he hasn't put it there. The problem is that it's not
the time for it to be revealed to us. But he will, in his time,
reveal it. And they drew nigh unto the village
where they went, and he made as though he would have gone
further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us. What a glorious thing, that the
people of God abide with us, for it is toward
evening and the day is far spent." And he went into Tauri with them
and it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread
and blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. He showed
them that the bread was his broken body, broken for them. Then their eyes were opened,
and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. And they
said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while
he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
scriptures? He causes the hearts of his people
to burn with him. But also he causes the hearts
of his people to be drawn back together with the apostles. He gathers them together, doesn't
He? The declaration of Himself is also the means of Him gathering
them together. The teaching about Himself, the
things pertaining to God, is the means for Him to gather them
back together. The showing, expounding unto
them all the things concerning Himself, is the means of revealing
Himself, but it's also the means of Him gathering people together. And they rose at the same hour,
verse 33, and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered
together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is
risen indeed. He was giving these many infallible
proofs that he was alive. The Lord is risen indeed and
has appeared unto Simon. And they told the things that
were done in the way, and how he was known of them in the breaking
of bread. And as they thus spoke, See,
as they are reciting the things of God, He comes amongst them. That's what church is about,
isn't it? We recite the things of God, we are here to declare
the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. His deity, His sovereignty,
His redeeming everlasting love, His drawing love, His keeping
love, His protecting love. He draws them together. Jesus Himself stood in the midst
of them and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And they were terrified
and affrighted, supposing that they had seen the Spirit. And
He said unto them, Why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise
in your hearts? They do, brothers and sisters,
don't they? We need him again and again to
come and say peace unto you. Why are you troubled? Why do
thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold thy hands and my feet,
that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit
hath no flesh and bones as you see me have. And when he had
thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while
they yet believed not for joy, it is, it is too good to be true,
it is too amazing to be true, brothers and sisters, but it
is nonetheless true. He showed them, and they believed
not for joy and wondered, and he said unto them, Have you any
meat? Have you any food? And they gave him a piece of
broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he took it and did eat before
them. And he said to them, these are
the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law
of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. And then this glorious, glorious
miracle. Then he opened their understanding. He opened their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. You can know the
Bible off by heart. You can have doctorates in theology
and church history. You can have all the training
that this world esteems so high. But unless that has happened,
people know nothing. Nicodemus knew the scriptures
off by heart and he had almighty God standing before him and he
didn't have a clue who he was. You must be born from above.
You must have your eyes open. He must open their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. And He said unto
them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoves Christ. It was
absolutely necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise
from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem, which is why they were in Jerusalem. And ye are
witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise
of my Father upon you, But wait, tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem
until you be endued with power from on high." And I love the
way Luke describes his parting from them. He led them out. He's always leading his people. He led them out as far as Bethany
and he lifted up his hands and he blessed them. He lifted up
his hands and he blessed them. He lifted up his hands as the
great high priest, showing the wounds to his father and blessing
his people because of what he had suffered. And it came to
pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried
up into heaven. and they worshipped Him and returned
to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple
praising and blessing God. Amen. It's a remarkable picture,
isn't it, that the Lord Jesus left this earth in that attitude
of blessing His people. He never changes. He can't change, brothers and
sisters. How do you bless the people as
Moses was instructed? You say, this is the way you
bless the children of Israel and say unto them, the Lord bless
thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine
upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee and give thee peace. and they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel." Just as we read in Ephesians 5, they
will be one flesh. They will have His name and I
will bless them. This great God of ours, the great
God who sovereignly rules all things, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, He has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. He shines. Where He shines, the
light shines upon Him. The light shines upon us. glorious, glorious pictures of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today
and forever. He is blessing His Church right
now with His presence. We have this glorious foundation,
don't we? The wonderful, wonderful truths
of the Scriptures. and the testimony of eyewitnesses. The testimony of eyewitnesses. So many bore witness to Him that
to deny the wonder and the power of His resurrection is to deny
what the scriptures say in their entirety and to deny the testimony
of men. It is. He is remarkably foolish. When he rose, his people rose
with him. When he ascended to heaven, Ephesians
3 tells us that his people ascended to heaven with him and they are
seated together with him. His activities and his purposes
in this world are the same as they always were. And the people
of God say, come, let us return unto the Lord, for he has torn,
he will wound, for he will heal us, he has smitten, he'll smite
down the flesh of proud men. and He will bind us up. He will heal the wounds that
He has made. And after two days, says Isaiah
6, after two days He will revive us and in the third day He will
raise us up and we shall live in His sight. It's exactly what
He's done. It's exactly what he's doing.
It's exactly what the miracle of the resurrection and the miracle
of church is about. I might close there saying my
body has stopped, but I pray the Lord might bless those words
to our hearts that he might do the things that he's promised
to do in the midst of his people, showing himself alive speaking
to the hearts of his people the things pertaining to the Kingdom
of God, assembling together with them, and then directing all
of their activities, bringing the promise of the Holy Spirit
to his own. Let's pray.