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Shall we break?
God pray that the him that we just sung.
Maybe the desires of our heart.
And we do thank thee again this afternoon.
That we can look up to that blessed resource all blessings come from.
We thank Thee for the love that was in my heart, our dog and father.
Send thy beloved son into this world to save the likes of us.
We are so humbled when we think that we have been brought into such a place of blessing.
We know it to be true, and we thank thee that we're not going to be here in this world.
Very much longer.
We're going to see the Lord Jesus face to face, to be with him like thee for the everlasting ages of eternity. Oh what love, what grace to think we who were sinners that spit in thy face.
Can now enjoy thy presence for all eternity. We know that on earth. Our song begins, however, and we.
Just pray, especially this afternoon.
That thou was directest to the portion of Thy precious word that would be exactly needed for each one of us.
We know that Thou art able to do that, and we are waiting upon Thee and trusting in Thee, our God.
To make thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, more precious to our hearts.
We know that without the Lord Jesus we can do nothing. Thus told us that and we.
Know it to be true, and so we just pray that the flesh might be kept in check, and that there might be a waiting upon thee, that we may all be edified.
That we just count upon thee for blessing to direct us to the right word. We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
I'd like to suggest Acts chapter 2.
The Lord.
It also may be as a preface to that. I think the 1St 15 verses of chapter one. I don't know how my brethren feel. I wasn't here for the prayer meeting. I don't want Mr. Tenor, the Lord's mind as to any direction.
Might have been.
Might have been leading us to so if another feels that another portion would be more suitable.
And happy to defer.
Pretty good to me, brother Steve.
I was thinking of the 1St.
14 verses of chapter one and then maybe pick up at verse one and chapter 2.
For this reading, probably just down to verse 13.
Acts chapter one.
The former treaties have I made, oh Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.
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 after His passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days, and Speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them, commended them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father. Which saith he, he have heard of me For John truly ******** with water. But ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days since, when they therefore were come together.
They asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times for the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power after that. The Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witness unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had spoken these things while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
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And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, You men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This ain't Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven. Shall so come in like manner, as you have seen him go into heaven. Then return they unto Jerusalem, unto the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. When they were come in, they went up into an upper room.
Abode both Peter and James, and John, and Andrew, and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotis and Judas the brother of James, these all continue with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
And then at chapter 2, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind.
And it filled all the house where they were sitting, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it 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. And there was dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another.
Behold, are not these which speak Galileans? And how here we every man in his own tongue, wherein that we were born Parthians and Medes, Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Jutea, and Cappadocia, and Pontius, and Asia?
Fergie and Pamphylia in Egypt, in the parts of Libya, right around Cyreni, the Syrian, the strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, creeds and agrabions. We do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said. These men are full of new wine.
I was thinking of this portion as it gives the wonderful truths of the beginning of the Church of God. The beginning of what Paul later on brings out is the mystery that was hidden God.
And the verses in chapter one as a preface to that help us to understand the the condition.
That the disciples were in before the Lord was received back up in glory, and there are a number of passages there that have been.
Very difficult and misunderstood by many Christians as well as what we have in chapter 2 and I feel like as the day progresses on as we wait for the Lord to come and more and more.
Error comes into professing Christianity and these things that it might be good to have our hearts better established and the truth that's presented in these two chapters. There isn't an event.
That is of greater importance to us that has taken place other than the work of the Cross.
Itself than the descent of the Holy Spirit.
Personally into this world.
To take up his abode in the House of God and in believers individually as well.
And all that flows from that.
Perhaps the 1St?
Thing that.
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Would point out.
Is in verse 2.
Two says, Until the day which he was taken up, after that, He through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.
The Lord Jesus went into death.
But you know, at the river Jordan, when he was baptized, the Spirit of God descended from heaven in bodily form like a dove, and took its abode up in that spotless man.
And he went on in his public ministry, and all that he did was in the power of the Spirit of God.
Right to the cross, and there in the cross, by the eternal Spirit, he offered himself without spot to God. He laid his life down.
But when he was raised from the dead.
Resurrected man.
He still was indwelt by the Spirit of God.
And so as he speaks in these 40 days that he's with his own, it is still in the power of the Spirit of God. He is still the habitation of the Spirit of God personally, himself.
And that's important as we go on into chapter 2, but I'll just note it there. They often slip by that in verse two and don't necessarily pick it up, but it's an assurance too to you and I. We're in dwelt by the Spirit of God, as we'll get in chapter 2. And there are many of his own who have gone into death.
The part of this scene, spirit and soul with Christ.
When the Lord comes and they're raised, they're going to be still indwelt by the Holy Spirit as well.
Is will in US forever?
In the same pattern as the Lord.
In the Spirit of God here now, his energy is so much.
Focused on.
Our walk giving us the power to walk here, for the Lord to judge ourselves to be separate from what would dishonor Him to whether it's internally or externally.
But when the Lord comes and the Saints are raised.
And those who are alive and remain are changed to be with him will all be still and dwelt by the Spirit of God.
But what will his energy all be poured into them?
Praise, worship, enjoyment of divine things. What is going to be the measure of our capacity of the enjoyment of God the Father and God the Son and divine things and all that awaits us in the coming day of glory? The fullness of the power of the Spirit of God indwelling you and me. There's no limit.
What a capacity to enjoy all that God has for us.
Unhindered by the flesh in that coming day.
We often look at a passage and think that here's something new and it is is a very wonderful event. But we knew we knew that God had foreordained a lot of these events. So that's why looking at the Old Testament scriptures for principles are important.
I'm thinking more particularly in the Seven Fees of Jehovah, where it already told us as if it were what's to come. So if you recall, in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus, it starts started off by the Passover. Death has to come in first, the blood has to be shed, and then you have the feast of the first fruit on the set on the 17th day of the month. That's the resurrection day.
What's important about the fees of the first fruits is they are told to count.
Seven weeks and the Morrow after seven weeks, 7 * 7 is 49 days plus the next day. That makes it 50 days. Very interesting, isn't it? To see that God had all this in mind even before the foundation of this world, death and resurrection. And then fifty days later, we the church, brought in the blessing. In fact, if you go back to the chapter, you'll find that a new meal offering is to be made.
You read through the Old Testament that a meal offering is to be offered without leaven, and we'll find this one is different is with leaven, but baked. Oh, is there so much? We can look at it and see how God had us in mind. The Gentiles now will be brought into blessings. Of course, salvation is of the Jew first, but now we're going to be brought into blessing. The Holy Spirit's going to descend into this world.
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More so than just descending into this world.
He's going to in dwell in US. What blessedness we have as Christians today.
Like to comment that we began the conference with two hymns. First one began in with Christ, our theme begins. The second one was in hope we lift up our wishful longing eyes. Both of the hymns have the character of a journey with a destination connected with it, and in scripture it's full of journeys.
The first most very significant one was Abraham was called to take on a journey. He was called to leave his where he lived and go to a land he did not know that God would show him when he obeyed and went out. And the children of Israel ended up in Egypt because of the disobedience. But to get to the promised land, Moses LED them out in a journey.
And we have.
The books of Moses that greatly expand and explain the whole journey that they had to take. The Lord Jesus himself went through this life in a journey that had a beginning and it had an end and it had a purpose connected with it.
And my own soul, it meant that we were going to have to have in the what we take up, some aspect of the character of journey. And we too. And what we have here that the Lord has put on Steve's heart is the beginning of another journey. It's the one we're on. It's the one we participate in, we're not part of.
Abraham.
We're not part of that which called the children of Israel to the Promised Land.
But we are part of a different portion of God's plans and ways that we call Christianity.
There are two things that particularly have to be before the journey we're on that begins in these two chapters, these two at the beginning of Acts and it's practical expression.
The two things that were foundational to it are given in John's Gospel.
One is Christ at the end of John's Gospel rises from the dead in resurrection life. Which character of that life is eternal?
That's the first one.
It had to be first before the journey that we're on could begin.
For anybody. Nobody in the Old Testament could partake of what we have this afternoon.
In our journey, because they did not know as we know it, had not been as we know it until the work of Christ at the cross. And he dies, and he rises again, and when he rises again he rises in that character of life.
That elsewhere is called eternal life.
And it's necessary for this journey that every participant in it have eternal life. And the 2nd is the journey could not begin.
Christianity and its proper character could not begin until the Spirit of God indwelt came down to indwell the believer.
And remain in that believer forever, because that's the other aspect of the eternal life which we have is the indwelling of the Spirit of God that works with the life that we have been given and will characterize that life forever.
And so much of what we have in the New Testament is bringing out that truth to us, the particular relationship we have to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Is not known until basically the Apostle Paul was taken to prison and then the mystery of the church is brought out and the truth of the high calling is brought out in Acts one and two. They didn't know that they're the beginning of the journey is the separation between the previous one that the children of Israel were to be part of. And sadly it's been interrupted and not finished in a full way until the tribulation comes.
But for us, there is that calling.
Of God.
To a place with himself and the Lord Jesus.
Recognizes and if you go through the last chapters of John's Gospel, we find the Lord Jesus preparing his disciples for what we have in the Acts. And it's practice and on beyond through the epistles that I'm going to be separated from you for a time. But my desire for you is that you be with me in the Father's house and that's what's going to I'm going to be laboring for you.
Until that is accomplished, this afternoon, the Lord Jesus is laboring by the Spirit in this room.
To fulfill that purpose that we will be together brought.
To the end of the journey, and that is where He is with himself in the Father's house, with the special privilege of for ourselves, having that unique, wonderful place of being, His body and His bride.
Could we say that Christianity didn't start until the Lord was in the glory? It couldn't, because it's a heavenly thing. And so the Forerunner, the first fruits, had to be in glory before Christianity properly could have any character or start. And so he had to return to the Father's house. And it isn't until he does that the Holy Spirit could be sent to earth.
To bring souls into that relationship with himself, That is what we know as the Church.
To also introduce what Steve commented on a little bit every journey.
Has in Scripture opposition.
And there's a learning process connected with it. Abraham, when he started his journey, he didn't completely start it properly. And it wasn't long before he ran into difficulties because he hadn't yet a mature faith that we find of him and and Hebrews Chapter 11.
The Lord Jesus. The perfect example of taking the journey is in chapter 12.
That was already read and we are to have our eye on Him as the perfect example to learn and see no man save Jesus only.
As the perfect example, and that's why it's not atonement. In chapter 12, it says who for the joy that was set before him, endured with patience. He was on that journey, and he himself having as a man that joy of the end of it set before him, endured in his own path of faith to the end. And he set before us to set aside the other witnesses that we might see him.
In it and so we find in chapter 2 almost immediately.
There begins to be that opposition.
To what?
Those who are on the journey experience. Abraham experienced it. The children of Israel experienced it in type. The conflict that we have is with Satan, with the flesh in US and with the world. And that starts through the acts. You start to see it.
Opposing the journey and the truth of what is to be at the end of it and every one of us experiences that compass opposite or.
Opposition to us in our daily lives.
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In the Gospel of Luke and chapter.
12.
Lord brings up the subject of at the end of the chapter of repentance.
Urgency.
Need of it and he was really Speaking of Israel as a nation having.
Manifesting manifesting their rejection of him. There was an issue that had to be dealt with and they better deal with it. He goes on into chapter 13 and the subject of repentance having been brought up, they say, well, what about those on who the tower of Siloam fell? What about those who pilot mingled their blood with their sacrifices or they sinners that needed to repent? And he says, except you all like except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
Repentance is the hinge upon which Israel's future blessing turns, and it's the hinge upon what your blessing and my blessing turn to it was necessary.
The Lord goes on in chapter 13 of Luke, and he gives a parable.
That we know well of the fig tree that did not bear fruit.
And the command is cut it down.
The appeal of the vine dresser is let me dig about and done it. Let it go for another year and we'll see if it bears fruit. They had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ coming lowly grace.
But now he's going to ascend back to heaven and the Spirit of God is going to come down and there's going to be a year, you might say of, of digging and dugging that fig tree that was fruitless to see if they would receive the testimony of the Spirit of God sent down from Christ in heaven. And if not, then cut it down. The 1St 6 chapters of Acts up through Chapter 7.
Is that year? It's not an additional year of testing of the first man. The 1St man's testing was done.
At the cross. But it's an offer to Israel that if they would repent of their sin of rejecting Messiah, He would bring their promised blessings in.
And so in chapter one, the Lord prepares the disciples.
That offer that is going to be made to Israel through them.
And he has 40 days with them. He speaks of things in those forty days concerning the Kingdom of God.
I take it that is very similar to what we might find in Matthew and the Beatitudes, the moral things concerning the Kingdom, the similitudes of the Kingdom, Kingdom and mystery, and chapter 13.
Of Matthew, and maybe even leading on into looking on to the coming establishment of the Kingdom and power and glory.
He spent 40 days. But I think the majority of it is just like what we have with Paul in Acts 20, where he says he went among them teaching the Kingdom of God the moral aspect of things, things that the disciples were going to need in his absence. And so he then says, wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father. They're going to be baptized.
With the Holy Ghost.
They are going to bear witness for him, but it's going to be in the power of the Holy Spirit when they make that offer.
Of repentance and of blessing to Israel.
Is that one of the things, brother Steve, that you were referring to when you said this first and 2nd chapter of Acts is off are often misunderstood? I believe so. I believe we'll we'll see verses as we go through this that.
Are yes, often misunderstood.
Well, I just say in a general way, because without wanting to be boastful or anything, many dear believers cannot understand how that, as you pointed out, Israel's and ultimately man in general, their testing was over at the cross when man crucified God's beloved Son. There was nothing more that God could do. What shall I do?
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I will send my beloved son. It may be they will reverence him when they see him.
And what happened?
They cast him out of the vineyard and slew him. That was the end of man's testing. But how precious it is to see, as Steve has been bringing out, that God, we might say, gives Israel one more chance.
Will you receive a testimony from a risen Christ in glory, in the power of the Spirit of God? And it was real power, the Lord had said to his disciples. Greater works than these shall you do, because I go to my Father's.
And the disciples, the apostles, they did in fact perform in that sense greater miracles than even the Lord himself did.
We don't need to go into it, but when did the Lord ever?
Walk down the street and have people healed merely by His shadow. We don't read of that. When did they ever take clothes and handkerchiefs from the Lord? And people were healed by him? No. And so in that sense there was an abundant testimony to the power of a risen Christ in glory. And I fully believe, according to what we read in Acts, that had Israel as a nation repented, the Lord would have come back and set up the Kingdom.
And people say, well, how can that be? He forms the church on the day of Pentecost.
Offers Israel the chance to repent, as you point out.
And had they repented as a nation, he would have come back. While at the same time.
The Lord knew very well they would not repent, and So what happens when they don't repent? His brother Steve has pointed out in the seventh chapter of Acts.
They.
They murder the brightest light that God had in the early church.
They murdered him, stoned Stephen to death. And what does the Lord do then?
Mr. Wiggum has a good comment on it. He says the grace of God picked up the very worst offender, Saul of Tarsus. Pseudo. Pardon me, he said. All right, you come and take his place and I'll make a greater servant of you.
Than even Stephen, but then what does he do? He brings out.
The preciousness of the mysteries. The heavenly calling of the Church, no longer a Kingdom on earth.
But heavenly calling and everything that goes with it. And people say, and I say it kindly, I can't understand that how God could offer Israel something And yet at the same time, if you could say it, and I say it with all reverence, God had behind His back something that had its place in a past eternity, that He was going to pick up you and me primarily as Gentiles and bring us into the most wonderful blessing.
More than Israel ever had or ever will have. We just have to sit back and say that's the plan of God that is beyond our beyond our human understanding.
The passage that very clearly.
Describes this offer during this year of digging around the tree and dunking. It is in Acts chapter 3.
In verse 19, this is the occasion when Peter having healed the man who had been lame from his birth.
And it causes a great commotion and they all run.
And Peter has the opportunity to communicate this wonderful message of the gospel of a risen Christ. But down in verse 19, Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. And here I'll defer to the Darby translation, so that times a refreshing shall come.
From the presence of the Lord.
And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you.
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Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution.
Of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets.
Since the world began.
That is a succinct expression of the offer to Israel.
Had they responded as Joseph's brethren responded when he finally revealed himself? I am Joseph your brother, whom he sold into Egypt.
It was a deep work in their hearts. As Stephen mentioned, the hinge. I like that expression.
Repentance. And had they corporately repented and said like some of them did, We've made a terrible mistake, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Had they done that, he would have sent Jesus Christ of down from heaven again, and the times of restitution of all things would have begun as all the prophets have spoken.
In the postponement now of their blessing has gone on.
For almost 2000 years.
Maybe more than 2000 years.
And surely the Lord knew that when he came over Jerusalem and he looked over it and he wept over it.
He knew the blessing that he had for them.
He knew it was being rejected and he knew the terrible judgment which would come in its place.
But this is a bonafide offer and it is quite something that just makes us shake our heads at how God's thoughts and His ways are so much higher than ours. As you say, the church has already begun in Acts chapter 2, but the truth of it not all yet understood or even communicated until that young man who held the clothes of those who stoned Stephen.
Was apprehended his way to Damascus.
If I need the Jewish nation as a whole, they lost their blessing. A God is a God of love. We know that a Jew as an individual, they can still be saved, can't they? They, when they accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, says they neither become Jew nor Gentiles. Is this new body that's being formed.
So they do have that blessing still as an individual, not just as a side comment. I was thinking of what Bill said earlier, as if God has something better for this new, new setup, the new body, the new church. You know, there is a phrase, two phrases we'll find in the book of Ephesians and Colossians, the history of God and the mystery of Christ. I don't want to digress too far from the chapter.
And for those who are taking note, you should write this down and go look it up. Is very interesting thought and I'll just mention it briefly, that the mystery of God is that there is going to be a body on earth and a head in heaven.
And the mystery of Christ is that we are going to be more than what Israel could receive. We will become heir and joint heir with Christ. That's a lot more blessing than they can have from this earth.
In Isaiah chapter 5, when the Lord is beseeching Israel and saying to them, what more could I do for you that I've not already done to draw the people to Himself? They're looked at as a vine, but they're looked at as a vine of man in nature, and God is working at that time with man. Is there anything that can come out of man that's good?
Can man produce fruit? And so he gave Israel a very special place before him. He separated them from the evil of the nations about them. He hedged them about to protect them from outside influences, and he worked with them. But there was nothing for God that came out of, and nothing does come out of man, sinful man, no matter how wonderfully God works with him. When the Lord Jesus came and was working with the people, He comes as the Messiah.
To those people and he's rejected, but in that rejection.
When he's talking to his disciples, he says to them, I am the vine.
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The vine of Israel is to be replaced with himself as the vine.
And the blessing comes through him alone.
And what his work on the cross?
Did in the one year that's been referred to, he is appealing to them still and if they would repent and accept him as the Messiah, they would be brought into blessing, but on a new foundation, the foundation of which he is the vine and they're brought into that. So and that is God never starts anything that he doesn't finish and he's going to finish that work.
In the Tribulation period, he's going to work with them again.
And he's going to appeal to them on the same grounds that he did when he was rejected.
And they're going to say, what are these wounds? They're going to know and recognize him in their in a very painful process that they put to death their Messiah and they will repent and they will accept him as such and be brought into the millennial blessing and eternal for them, blessing having to do with the earth as the basis of the work of Christ as well.
That brings them into that blessing, but he appeals to them as they are, as Jews.
And in fact, after Chapter 7, the process of separating them from the believers, from Judaism and bringing them into Christian ground is a takes the whole book and then it works. Not finished when Axe is finished, but nonetheless the process goes on. And so it's a wonderful thing to recognize just to make a separate moral application. God has started to work in your life and mine, and he's going to work on you until it's finished.
And the whole of your life and mine is a process of that work going on in US.
To fit us for the full enjoyment of glory with himself.
Some have objected to the thought of an offer.
Of repentance to Israel.
That it was disingenuous? That God never intended to.
To bring it to pass. But that's not a right thought. If they had repented, he would have.
Well, how is it then that he would have done that and then all the Old Testament prophecies that we find unfolding in the Tribulation have taken place. Everything was in place.
There was an apostate king on the throne, Herod.
There was the last holder of Gentile power at that time that they were subject to Rome.
There was a faithful remnant around the Lord looking for His return as we find here ready going to be ready to preach.
Repentance to Israel. There was an apostate mass of the nation that would oppose them and persecute them and they would suffer. Everything was in place. All of the prophetic scriptures could have unfolded in the next few years and the Lord would come. It's it was all in place. There was no hindrance.
To the Lord working everything to the end of the fulfillment of prophetic scriptures.
That offer was genuine.
Is that why Brother Steve the Lord is in verse 7 doesn't really answer their question directly?
There's a I, I think yes, he knows. As you pointed out, there's something else, man's failure. I love how Ballot takes things up and and he looks at when man fails in respect of his responsibility towards God.
And things come to an end, he said God just opens the door to something better, you know, and so something better is going to open up. But for them, they're going to make this offer. And have they known the truth of the church and the mystery? It would have confused things for them. No, they were going to go out in the fullness of their hearts and make that that offer to Israel of repent and and be baptized. Wash away your sins.
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Receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. They were going to go out and that was absolutely not going to be hindered in any way by what was yet to be unfolded in a coming time. It's really interesting to notice when he's when they say will thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel. This time refers to what he said in verse 5.
He speaks of the baptism of the Spirit. John had said he would baptize with the Spirit and with fire. He just speaks of the baptism of the Spirit. Baptism with fire is still to come in its judgment. He will with his fan and his hand thoroughly purge his floor and burn the chaff with fire unquenchable. That's not what was going to happen here. And so he mentions the baptism of the Spirit, and they say, well, now at this time, the time of the baptism of the Spirit.
Restore the Kingdom to Israel says not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Fathers put in his own power.
In Thessalonians, First Thessalonians 5, Paul says to the believers, you know the times and seasons. I don't need to tell you.
The word know in chapter one of Acts is the thought of knowledge inwardly, experientially.
In Thessalonians.
Chapter First Thessalonians 5 It's objective knowledge, more the knowledge of the facts.
That strengthens the force of what the Lord is saying here. It's not for you to know the times, the periods of time in which the Kingdom will be established with Israel as the head of the nations. It's not for you to know those periods of time. You're not going to know that now or the seasons, the things that characterize those periods of time.
It's the thought of you're not only don't know the periods of time, you're not even going to experience it. It's not going to be experiential knowledge with you.
And so he closes that. He says no, I've got work for you to do. And he directs them that way.
And he uses one of the most difficult words in the English language. It's even a four letter word, He says. Wait.
And for all the dear, beloved young people in this room and all the children, and even for me, sometimes the hardest thing in the whole world, we have a timeline and we things aren't, we think things ought to hurry up and happen. And he's talking about things happening as our brother mentioned, the vine, the Lord Jesus being the vine, things happen because he's using us in his work. We're not just making it happen. We're not just waking up. And man, I'm going to go and make this happen.
The Lord has a timing. He has a way. I remember once we were working on a project and there was a brother there named Walter Walt Porter, and we were doing sheetrock. And this guy, he, he takes the mud and I've never really worked with mud. I didn't know really what he's doing. He puts in this bucket and he has his mixer and he's mixing it. Mix it. I'm like, well, that's looks good enough to me. Let's put it on the wall and he mixes it and he mixes it and he mixes it. And I was like, Oh my goodness, is this a government job? And he mixes it and he mixes it and he stops.
And he took that stuff out of there and it was perfect. And he went and he put it on the wall and there weren't any bubbles and there weren't any lumps. And he didn't even hardly have to sand the stuff because he did the work. He waited. And so often. We want to hurry up, Lord, can you do it by tomorrow, please? And he's not on the same timetable we are.
He's got his own, you know, we talk about our brother mentioned the year that and and we look at that and we're just like, come on, can't you take care of this? He's got his own timetable and he will use us in his Kingdom if we let him, if we wait on him. Another example, we would be like, I'm going to hurry up and make these, you know, bring this thing to pass. I'm going to I'm going to, you know, I see somebody and I, I know what they need and I'm going to go tell him, you know what, if they're not open for that, all you're doing is pushing them away.
Ask Him, make a suggestion. Are you open? Could I share something with you? If they say no, just let it go. It's not time. We can trust the Lord in his timing. He's got everything figured out.
00:50:05
This is one of the passages that is so misunderstood.
Years ago my brother came to me and he read these verses.
Verse six through.
Seven verse six and seven, he said.
If the Lord really intended.
To set up a Kingdom on this earth. Millennial Kingdom.
If he really intended this was the time to tell them that he was going to do it and he didn't, therefore he's not going to was the point.
It's the opposite. If there was ever a time for the Lord to tell them that he had no intention of ever setting up a Kingdom, this was the time. And not only does he not say that, He affirms it.
If my son comes to me and, you know, I told him we're going to buy a bicycle and he says, dad, when are you going to get the bicycle? And I'd say it's not for you to know. When would that be? Would he take that as I'm saying he's never going to get the bicycle? No, he'd go away happy because it's really an affirmation. He still doesn't know that this is an affirmation from the Lord that the Kingdom will be set up.
It was not for them to know the time, but it has been twisted to make the Lord say there is no future Kingdom on this earth. It's not true.
I know it's going ahead, but it doesn't hurt sometimes to do that. And that is.
This answer that the apostles got, did they eventually get the whole thing? Yes, they did. Because when Paul comes along, as we said earlier, the Lord picks up Saul of Tarsus in one sense, the very worst one responsible. Others were carried away in the heat of passion, but Saul of Tarsus was calm and cool and collected, he said.
Give me your, give me your clothes, your outer garment, so you can throw stones, all the better. And that was just fine with him. Get rid of that man, Steven, and you're going to hit this Christianity right in the middle. Take the perhaps the most powerful preacher they had at that time. And I don't mean to discount Peter and others, but it says particularly they could not resist the spirit with which he spake.
But what does God do? Takes that man, and what gives him all the answers?
So that now, later on, you and I know.
How everything's going to pan out because if someone else has said.
Paul gives us the truth of the assembly in which everything is displayed, and that's why in Colossians Paul could say it was given unto him to fulfill or complete the word of God.
Just as an aside to that, I've had people try and tell me, well, there's been new revelations since then. I said, well then the Bible, I can't believe my Bible any more because yes, others like John and perhaps Peter filled in details, but there's no new revelation. Paul was given to complete the word of God. So then.
Yes, Peter has to admit. Yes, our beloved brother Paul says some things that are hard to be understood.
It was hard for a godly Jew to understand just how all this was going to pan out.
But God gave Paul all of that. Again, we don't know exactly when.
But God gave him the whole truth of the assembly, which includes the.
Blessing of Israel in the coming day. And as a brother used to remind us that I grew up and I grew up under his ministry. He said I never met a man or a woman either that could understand the word of God correctly unless they saw that God had in his purposes the blessing of the church in heaven and the blessing of Israel on earth. And it will happen as Steve has been bringing out, and it's Paul's ministry that brings that out.
00:55:00
But as we've said already, we don't get that in the first two chapters of Acts. That has to wait until later.
Like to comment also another aspect of the subject and that is bringing in the issue of faith.
Abraham, to use him as an example, was a man that was told to go out not knowing where he was going.
He did not have revealed to him the end of his calling at that point in time and he was tested multiple times afterwards, particularly when he was told to take Isaac and offer him.
Up and he could say God had already said to him.
And his son, all the nations of the world would be blessed. He knew that much then. But he could have said to himself, well, if that's true, and I do, I only have one son, Isaac.
And if Ioffer him up, how could that purpose be fulfilled? The point is, God has so chosen that until we reach the end of the story, there will always be in our lives the needs be to have faith. If we saw everything and every detail and every step of the way, it would not produce in us that dependence upon the Lord.
And upon God to provide so that the promises yet realized.
And that applies in its principle even to the Lord Jesus today.
As Son of God, He knows everything.
Son of Man, he's a man. Does he know exactly as that in the character of the Son of Man, exactly when what's being we've been talking about is going to happen?
He does not. He does not.
If you say what day, what year, Lord, are you going to have the rapture and set up the Kingdom, He would say that's in my Father's hands to decide, not mine. And so he also as a man waits.
It says the patience of the Christ. Why does he have to exercise patience? Because he's waiting.
For the Father's time to fulfill all the desires of his own heart.
To bless Israel and to have you and I in his presence for eternity. And so, as it says again of him in in chapter 12, who for the joy that was set before him endured. There's a hope that's connected with faith, and there's also the development of endurance in that path of faith or the journey of faith that we have to learn.
Like Abraham, we don't learn it overnight. We have to go through trials in our lives, experiences that God puts us into.
To test whether and to help us to learn to be.
Joyful in tribulation?
That doesn't come naturally.
But God would develop in us knowing that even the tribulations through which we're passing there can be associated with it, a joy that he experienced that we should experience as well. There can be an endurance developed in us that was true of himself. And so because faith is another part of the whole picture, even as to these things that we talk of prophetically and God knowing ahead of time whether Israel would respond or not respond and when they would respond and so on.
It's also important to have the element of faith realized in it that we recognize that.
You and I don't know what's going to happen this afternoon or tomorrow, but our faith tells us it's in the hand of God and it's working toward the end purposes to which He has called us. And we are to accept that and accept what the Lord Jesus said to his Father when he was rejected. And Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight, that is he submitted.
That the will of God was perfect, and the will of God is that which determines the exact time when some of these things will happen.
01:00:09
Main thing that the Lord is preparing them for immediately is that they would be His witnesses.
And so he tells them they would be baptized with the Holy Ghost. For what purpose? Verse A Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and he shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, into the uttermost parts of the earth, and expanding.
Sphere out and out and out to the ends of the earth.
Brother said years ago, remember him standing up. I think all good intentions after remembrance, the Lord said why were the disciples hiding in the upper room for fear of the Jews? The Lord was risen. They should have been out preaching the gospel. They had no power to do that. They had no power.
Not only that at that point their understanding wasn't even open, but later when the Lord appears in the midst, He opens their understanding and so they have a.
Understanding of the scriptures they had never had before, and that's demonstrated in the verses that we didn't read in chapter one and the way Peter handles.
The replacement for Judas, so their understanding was opened.
Intel, spiritual intelligence, but no power yet.
Had to wait until they had power and the Lord had said of the comforter that when he came he would bear witness of the Lord.
The witness of Christ, risen Christ glorified Christ in this world as safely in the hands of the Spirit of God. And he said to the disciples, and ye also shall bear witness. And so they had to wait until they were duped with power from on high, and then they would be his witnesses. I want to make one preemptive comment if I can. I don't want to step on any anyone's toes.
Our brother Dave mentioned how the feasts of Jehovah, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Wave Sheaf pictures Christ risen from the dead.
Perfectly acceptable to God in a wonderful way. And then the Feast of weeks, those fifty days later, the two wave loaves brought out, baked and presented way before the Lord as well. Picture of the Church. I'd like to say this.
Why 2 loaves?
Because they were going to bear witness to the risen chief and two is an adequate testimony. It's an adequate witness. It is not June Gentile in one body. Two loaves would be destructive as a type of one body.
It's not Jew and Gentile in one body. It's adequate testimony and witness.
To the risen sheaf. And that is what he is preparing them for, to bear witness of himself. And I believe it says in chapter four or five, then the apostles gave a mighty witness to the resurrection. They fulfilled what he had given them to do in the power of the Spirit of God. And so he prepares them for that moment when the spirit of they be baptized by the Spirit of God and have power to bear testimony to him.
I'd like to make a few comments regarding power as well. The Spirit of God, the power of the Christian life, the power that works in us, the power that worked on the Day of Pentecost is introduced to us in that way in John 14. I would like to go back and comment on it a little bit.
Where the promise of the Spirit.
To come upon them is given.
In chapter 14 as well as 1213141516, the Lord is preparing them.
Separation from them, and they had had the Lord Jesus himself in their midst.
To provide everything that was needed for them to serve him, to be with him, to fulfill his will.
And so he now recognizes he's going to be separated from them for a time, and so he prepares them for it. And in Chapter 14, he says.
01:05:02
Verse 16 I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter.
That He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know Him. For He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. And then he goes on.
To tell them about for a while. You're not going to see me.
That comforter, that spirit of truth.
Dwells in you and I this afternoon.
As exactly the same amount of power working in US as it did on the day of Pentecost.
Not one iota less power is in you and in me as was in the disciples on the Day of Pentecost. However, on the Day of Pentecost and the time following, the Spirit of God used that which is the power. Use that power through His servants to fulfill the purposes that have been talked about already.
This afternoon in the message to Israel and showing them.
Evidences of the power that would be seen in the Kingdom. And so he presents that to them and he uses them in that way.
Now that power is working in us in a different way. It's the same power, but the power of God is not. And that's the only power there is. Brethren, there's no power in us. That's an important thing. We sometimes say, I wish I had power.
They didn't have any power in themselves on the Day of Pentecost. It was the power of the spirit of working in them.
We don't have any power in us. We never in that sense will. It's the power of the Spirit of God that indwells us, that does what he does for us, in US and through us. And we thank God, he's chosen to do that. And so there is because of failure at times that which withholds the use of that power even in the Christian profession.
But I would make this comment about it. The comforter came as the spirit of truth.
And if their submission, there will always be the working of the power of the Spirit of God in US.
To recognize the truth and walk in it, and the Spirit of God will always enable.
That we can walk according to the leading and direction of the Spirit of God, no matter how messed up the profession gets before the Lord comes.
You sing #333.
It's a just that we the Church, dear glory.
Brought should win the Sun be blast.
Oh God.
The fun was thine, thine in all.
Torture.
Mind.
For thou so boats of dream.
Great.
Or strength of ever find.
Thy lonely ain't gonna be.
01:10:36
With great dear life.
I.
Won't respond, We see.
A cold is thrown in. Boring.
Right the.
Right of Christ shall be.
Sealed with.
I won't trust God has made our most.
Glory with Christ above.
Our God and Father, we do thank Thee for the start that we've had this day, for the prayer meeting time to be in prayer, bearing up our every need and and calling upon Thee for help. We thank Thee.
We know that thou alone art able. We thank Thee for this portion that we've had before our souls. We just do pray that that would help us to understand some of these things that are difficult for us. And this day that we're living in, coming very close now to to the end that it might be an encouragement for us to think and to know that our blessed Savior has not changed one bit. Our God has not changed.
His plans one bit, so just to ask Thy help now. And as we leave this place, we pray for mercies and that Thou keep everyone safe on the road. And if there are others still traveling to be here, we pray Thy mercy still for them too. Giving thanks. Our God and Father, the precious name of the Lord Jesus our Savior, Amen. Amen. Amen.