we're going to read Acts chapter
15. It's a little bit of a long passage, but I think that it's
probably useful for us just to take the time to read it together. So, Acts chapter 15, and this
is to do with what is sometimes called the Council at Jerusalem,
and it shows us that there were problems and difficult questions
that had to be answered in these early days of the church. And certain men which came down
from Judea taught the brethren, so this is, they came to Antioch,
they came to where Paul and Barnabas had returned to after their first
missionary journey. And certain men came down from
Judea and taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. when therefore
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other
of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders
about this question. And being brought on their way
by the church, they passed through Phenis and Samaria, declaring
the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy unto
all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders,
and they declared all things that God had done with them.
But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which
believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and
to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and
elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there
had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men
and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice
amongst us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe. You'll remember perhaps that
that was at the time when Peter preached to Cornelius and his
family. And God which knoweth the hearts,
bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did
unto us. And put no difference between
us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 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? But we
believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved, even as they. Then all the multitude kept silence
and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles
and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after
they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren,
hearken unto me. Simeon hath declared how God
at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people
for his name. And to this agree the words of
the prophets, as it is written. After this I will return and
will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down,
and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up,
that the residue of men might seek after the Lord. And all
the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who
doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. Wherefore my sentence is that
we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned
to God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions
of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and
from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them
that preach him being read in the synagogues every Sabbath
day. Then pleased it the apostles
and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own
company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, surnamed
Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren. And they
wrote letters by them after this manner. The apostles and elders
and brethren send greetings unto the brethren which are of the
Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we
have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled
you with words, subverting your souls, saying ye must be circumcised
and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment, It
seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen
men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul. men that have
hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have sent, therefore, Judas and Silas, who shall also tell
you by the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy
Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols,
and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication,
from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fear ye well. So when they were dismissed,
they came to Antioch, and when they had gathered the multitude
together, they delivered the epistle, which when they had
read, they rejoiced for the consolation. Well, that'll suffice for our
reading today. Thank you for listening to that
extended account. May the Lord bless to us this
reading. What I wanted to show you was
that, and I'll just throw up this little map here, because
this is an earlier map that we showed before, and a number of
you have said you've appreciated just the opportunity to look
at these little pictures. Up on the top right-hand corner,
you can see Antioch there, and that's where Paul and Barnabas
returned to after they had fulfilled their first missionary journey
in what is Asia and Cilicia along the top. So this is the Mediterranean
Sea here, and Cyprus there as well, the large island, and Asia
and Cilicia, that's modern day Turkey. And we find round the
corner there is Antioch, and that's where Paul and Barnabas
had both been sent from. on their missionary journey and
returned to. But we discovered that there
were other people also in Antioch at that time and they had come
up from Judea. You can see Judea down here in
the bottom right. So there's Samaria and Jerusalem
and Judea. So Jerusalem was in Judea and
it would seem that these men had come up, they were Jews and
they had come up from Judea and perhaps actually from Jerusalem
itself. They had come up with the idea
that they wanted to impose upon the Gentile believers the law
of Moses. And to say that the Gentile believers,
having been converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, they had to
be circumcised, that meant they had to have a cut made in their
skin and to take on the as it were, the garments of being a
Jew. Although they weren't born as
Jews yet, that was the way in which they came under the obligations
of living and worshipping as a Jew. That they would be circumcised
and that they should be obedient to the law of Moses and all the
Jewish Old Testament duties that came with that. And these men
contradicted Paul and Barnabas. And they said emphatically, and
we can see that in verse 1, and I want you just to notice that,
that here in verse 1 they are saying, except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. And that's important,
that's the important point here. That unless you do something,
you can't be saved. Unless you obey Moses, unless
you come under the covenant obligations, unless you fulfil these certain
duties, unless you live in this particular way, you can't be
saved. And Paul and Barnabas, they argued
against that error. But as these men came from Judea,
The church at Antioch felt that they needed to go back and ask
about what these men were saying. Now, I don't want to make too
much of this at the moment, but this is one of those occasions
when sometimes in order to establish a certain form of government
in a church, People say that here Jerusalem was being recognised
as being the centre of the church and that these other churches
weren't independent local gatherings but rather they still owed allegiance
to Jerusalem. Well, I don't believe that that's
the case. I think these were indeed independent local churches
and that's what we continue to maintain today. We don't, we're
not part of a larger denomination. We're an independent church in
our own right and with our own local government. But these men
had come from Jerusalem or they'd come from Judea at least. And
that is the reason why a question needed to be asked. Well, did
these men, come because they were sent? Is this Jerusalem
trying to involve themselves in this question, in this matter?
So a party is sent from Antioch to Jerusalem to inquire about
this question, about whether there are certain things you
need to do in order to be saved, and it seems that there's a lot
of discussion, and it seems perhaps even that there is a sect there
of the Pharisees, which believed, and these people were also, assuming
that it's not the original people that went to Antioch, these people
also seem to want to stand up and say that there were certain
things needed to be done. So there's a lot of conversation.
And we find a very important statement made in verse 11. Peter stands up and he says,
look, I went and I preached to Cornelius and Cornelius was saved
and I can't deny that God saved Cornelius and God sent the Holy
Spirit upon him and there was no other requirement needed.
So Peter says in verse 11, We believe that through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." And
that is an important statement because that is showing that
salvation doesn't come by the things that we do, it comes by
faith. Salvation is enjoyed, experienced,
entered into, known about. by our faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, not by the things that we do. That it's through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we shall be saved. His goodness,
his gift, his free mercy is a gift which comes to us and we receive
that gift by trusting in his word and believing on him. And
so that was an important point. And as well as that, we discover
that Paul and Barnabas gave testimony of their ministry in Turkey and
the missionary journey that they went to and all the miracles
and wonders that had been performed by God in order to bring the
Gentiles to believe in him. And then James also, and he's
another one of the apostles in Jerusalem at this time, not James
the brother of John because he was dead already. You remember
we discovered that James the brother of John had been killed
by Herod. But this is another James who
was also a an apostle. We sometimes call
him James the son of Alphaeus or James the Less and it's him
who wrote the book that we have, the little book of James at the
back of our New Testament. And this James he agreed with
Peter that no burden of Moses' law was to be laid on the Gentiles. And he made this exception in
his little speech. He said, except for matters of
idolatry and fornication. And indeed, this all seems to
do with idolatry. because it is to recognise that
if a person trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no other
trusting in another God for him. We cannot have the Lord Jesus
Christ as one of many gods or one of many ways that we follow. We either are idolatrous and
trust in something else, a God of our own making, a God of our
own imagination, and all the things that follow from that,
the sacrificing, the offering of blood, the fornication, the
lifestyle that that requires. If we put ourself at the top
priority of our lives, then we will do things that are dishonouring
to God. And rather, James says, a man
and a woman, a boy and a girl, is to trust the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. And if the knowledge of Christ
is possessed in our hearts, then we will already have given up
idolatry. And this message was sent by
a man called Judas and Silas, as well as Paul and Barnabas,
and a letter for confirmation was sent back to the church at
Antioch. And together these people confirmed
that the troublemakers that had come to Antioch had no authority
from the church at Jerusalem, and the church at Jerusalem agreed
with Paul and Barnabas that the salvation came by the grace of
the Lord and was received by faith by believers. And this
is a very significant moment in Christian history because
a challenge had arisen to the simplicity of faith and indeed
salvation by grace. And that challenge had been withstood.
And one might think that it's a wonderful thing to have such
an amazing, illustrious gathering there in Jerusalem. Peter and
James and John was there as well, although he's not mentioned.
Paul and Barnabas. And you would think that that
would be sufficient to stop men adding things to faith that people
might be saved. But unfortunately we find that
it didn't stop the question in Paul's own day and there were
people who followed him round through all his preaching, wherever
he went, trying to overturn this fact that salvation is by grace. And we still find it today, that
there are preachers in churches who will say, yes, we believe
that salvation is by grace, but you've also got to do all these
other things. You've also got to join us and
be a member and pay your money and do these things and live
like this. all lots of things that they
add in to faith to make salvation possible. And we have to, upon
the basis of the Word of God and the authority of Scripture,
by the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, Peter, James and John,
reject that. and acknowledge, as Peter says
in verse 11, that it is through grace, the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that we shall be saved. Salvation is by grace
alone. This is what was established
at the council in Jerusalem. And the question is, do you believe
that? Do you believe that or do you
think that there are other things that you must do too? You know,
naturally we want to do things to please God, to gain His favour. But the Gospel message is that
God has done everything. By the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Christ has done everything for the salvation of His people. Christ has obtained forgiveness
for our sins. and he has secured salvation
for our souls. And that's the gospel. The gospel
we believe and the gospel that we preach. And when we preach
this gospel, We learn who is saved by whether or not they
believe the truth from God, because God is the one who gives us faith
in order to believe his word. So thank you once again for listening.