Acts 2

Acts 2:1-43

THE Act_2:1-43. THE first chapter of Acts concluded with the choice of Matthias. We have seen that such a choice was probably a mistake, but God’s favor is not dependent upon man’s perfection of thought or conduct. Our mistakes may keep us from blessings, but in the end they will neither thwart the Divine program nor abolish the Divine promises. History moves, and the upper room prayer-meeting is concluded in “the day of Pentecost, fully come”.Pentecost is misunderstood by many people. It appeared between the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, and is named in Exodus 23:16 as the “Feast of Harvest”. On that account some people think it merely celebrates the gathering in of fruits.

On the contrary, that thought is perfected in the Feast of Tabernacles, while Pentecost memorializes rather Israel’s freedom from Egypt’s oppression, even as the Passover marked the time and method of it. This fact will find significance in our further study and perhaps it accounts for the outpouring of the Spirit on that particular date, for now a new Israel was to be born, and the Church, to which the Law and the Prophets had moved, was to begin its life and labors in the world, the chief objective of which was to make known the way of salvation to all men.Following the text, we are impressed by The Promise Fulfilled, The Apostolic Appeal, and The Products of Pentecost.THE PROMISE We saw in our study of the first chapter The Promise of the Coming Spirit, The Promise of the Coming Son, and The Promise of the Coming Apostasy.

The last of these had already taken place— Judas had apostatized; the first of these, or the promise of the coming Spirit is herein recorded, while the promise of the coming Son awaits the close of this age.This fulfilment partakes of the nature of both substance and symbol. That the Spirit Himself descended on the day of Pentecost, and, in confirmation of Christ’s promise, is the main purport of this second chapter. The manifestation of the Spirit, however, was in symbols—“as of a mighty rushing wind” and “tongues, like as of fire”. These symbols are suggestive in the last degree.The first conforms to the method of baptism as everywhere set forth in the Book. This “mighty wind . . . filled all the house where they were sitting”. They were then immersed in it.

This demands no change in the Biblical form of baptism. It harmonizes with Romans 6:4-5 : “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection”. It also gives significance to Paul’s statement to the Corinthians, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).It is doubtful if there be any doctrine of the Bible about which there is more controversy than the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and yet, upon the most fundamental points, the great majority of true Bible students and teachers are agreed, namely, the personality of the Holy Spirt, His participation in the Godhead, His outpouring upon the Church, His administration of the Church in this dispensation, and the fact that He is the source of both the speech and strength of the Church of God. There was, therefore, need of a second symbol.With the Spirit’s coming occurred the symbol of speech—“tongues of fire”. Hackett in his commentary on Acts doubtless justly contends that it was not “cloven tongues” that sat upon them, but a tongue of flame that separated itself from the main light that flashed in that upper room and shown above the head of each participant in that ten day prayer-meeting. There can scarcely be any question that this symbol also carried a double significance. A flame conveys light, and tongues express messages. The fruits of both facts are found in what follows.“Every man heard them speak in his own language. “And they were all amused, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this” (Acts 2:6; Acts 2:12)? We know the answer that was made, and will later give it particular attention, and we know the light that came that day and has since abided in the world. For while it is a truth that “Christ is the Light of the world”, it is also true that all who have accepted Him partake not alone of His life, but of that light as well, and it is on that account that He could truthfully say, “Ye are the light of the world”.“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). The gift of tongues seems to have been granted in more than one instance in the New Testament. The record here, the reference in 1 Corinthians 12:10, and 1 Corinthians 14:22-27 would make that fact plain. Whether that gift was intended to be permanent, neither the clear teachings of the Word nor the history of the Church adequately answers. The present outbreak of teaching upon “the tongues” subject is primarily due to that revolt against the clear teachings of God’s Word, which finds its other extreme in the people who propose not only to defend those teachings, but to rekindle even the most questionable message or method that ever found a single New Testament precedent. The truth is not as a rule with the most virulent extremists, and men are not shut up to a choice between the modern critic of the Bible and the fanatical Pentecostal movement of the present day. If they were, a thousand times better cast in their lot with the latter than with the former!

But history holds abundant illustrations of the certainty of Divine favor upon those men and women who both preach and practice the clear precepts of the sacred Word, and hold in mental reserve the minor and incidental points that have ever been the occasion of honest debate. There are some things, however, so clear in this Scripture that the wayfaring man, though a fool, should not err therein, and they are the necessity of the Spirit in the life of the Christian and in the life of the Church, and the certainty that if our tongues were ever to voice the truth with power, it will be by His occupation of our bodies and spirits which are the Lord’s.This evident miracle in speech amazed the multitudes.“They were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this” (Acts 2:12)? Here again a dual suggestion is discovered. Unregenerate men can never understand the ways of the Holy Ghost. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him” (1 Corinthians 2:14), and an evident miracle is always a mental amazement to either the unbelieving or the believing, such is their conviction that the natural must obtain and the supernatural cannot occur. Men by nature are unbelieving, and perhaps the highest exhibition of grace is manifested when men come to truly believe God and clearly to accept the thought that with Him “all things are possible”. They can expect a Parthian to talk in the Parthian dialect, and a Mede in the Median dialect, and an Elamite in the Elamite dialect, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia in the Mesopotamian dialect, and so on to the end. But that a man born in Galilee and untrained in the science of language and even ignorant of the speech employed by another people, should suddenly break forth in the perfect use of a tongue never before employed, is past the credulity of the natural man who is a materialist. But here, as in so many other instances, the sacred Word of God is confirmed by secular testimony.Tacitus, the historian of Jesus’ day, contemporaneous with the beginnings of the Church, confirms this report from the pen of Luke.

In his Annals, Book 15, Chapter 44, he writes concerning Christianity: “Christus, from whom the name of Christian has its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate; and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out in Judea.”G. T.

Stokes, in his discussion of this incident, says, “So that the Pagan historian, who knew nothing about Christianity, save what official pagan documents or popular report told him, agrees with the Scriptures that Christianity was checked for a moment by the death of its founder, and then gained its earliest and most glorious triumph on the very scene of its apparent defeat where—and this is a very important part of the argument—previously the most marvellous wisdom and the most striking signs and wonders had utterly failed to gain any large measure of success. Whence, then, can we explain this fact, or how account for this conscience stricken cry, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do’? unless we assume, what the narrative of our text declares, that the Holy Ghost, in all His convincing and converting power, had been poured out from on high?”There is never a clear evidence of Divine interposition apart from an immediate opposition, and even an attempt to explain on natural grounds. So here. “Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13)—or “sweet grape juice”. It is a strange statement! Sweet grape juice does not intoxicate, nor has it any tendency to loosen the tongue, and certainly no ability to enable man to talk intelligently in other and unknown tongues. When did rationalism ever give a reasonable explanation of anything that was Divine?

We turn then from its puerility toTHE APPEALPeter as usual is the spokesman. It was his voice that was lifted up, and to the “men of Judea” and “all that dwell at Jerusalem” that he appealed.

The speech made involved Peter’s defense against a false charge, his interpretation of the Old Testament prophecy and his clear exposition of the Deity of Jesus Christ.Peter’s defense against this false charge. “These are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. “But this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel; “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: “And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy: “And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:15-21). Truth has a strange way of triumphing against falsehood. Infidels have assiduously sought to explain everything reported in the Old and New Testaments upon natural grounds or else deny the faithfulness of the record, and at both attempts they have signally failed. The faithfulness of this record has not been successfully denied and the natural explanation has not been widely accepted. On the contrary, for twenty centuries the Church of the living God has uniformly believed that Peter’s explanation was both pertinent and perfect, and that “this was that which had been spoken by the Prophet Joel”. In fact, even the men who had made the charge were more amazed by Peter’s answer than they were by the tongues themselves. Those who had charged drunkenness were themselves sobered, silenced, convinced, yea, even convicted.

Such a sermon is of the Spirit!This was a meaningful interpretation of the Old Testament prophecy. We might, if we so desired, add, “Of the Old Testament prophecies,” for before Peter finishes, he sweeps a wide range of Scripture quotation.It is a very significant fact that this somewhat fully reported sermon from the Apostle’s lips should stand the test of centuries.

Peter was of the company of the ignorant and unlearned fishermen, called by Christ to be servants of His will, and trained in His own Bible college where He Himself was the teacher. What a school that! When and where has it ever been improved upon? What is the object of a Bible school now if not to make students familiar with the meaning of God’s Word, and who is the adequate teacher save Jesus Himself, and how can He voice His convictions but by the printed Word and the still, small voice of the Spirit?The main point in Peter’s defense is the Deity of Jesus. To be sure, he commenced it in explanation of the personality and power of the Spirit, but that doctrine had its roots in the deliverances of Christ. Back in the Gospels, the Spirit had been promised.“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter * * even the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17). “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me” (John 15:26). “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). But who is this Christ who can promise so important a Person and effect His presence at will? Is He not “Jesus of Nazareth”? Yes, but a “Man approved of God * * by miracles and wonders and signs”; a Man who, when He was crucified, was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”; a Man “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death” in keeping the promise to David that “He should be holden of it”, but His soul should not be left “in hell”, neither should His Holy One “see corruption”. All of this Peter found fulfilled in Christ risen already, whereof he and many others were “witnesses”, exalted now to “the right hand of God”, where he with many others had seen Him go, and setting forth the “promise of the Holy Ghost”, which they were now seeing and hearing! What an amazing conclusion! “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).It was a marvelous deliverance! It involved the highest courage on the Apostle’s part.

It is a serious thing to charge men with murder, and of all the crimes ever known to earth, the unthinkable one was to murder the Son of God. Yet Peter made that charge against the people to whom he spoke. Will he get by with it? Will he ever be permitted to speak again, or will they take up stones and silence him forever? The rest of the chapter is the answer.We shall only briefly touch upon a few of the high points of what remains, for it is our purpose to contribute another chapter to this marvelous result of Peter’s preaching, and to the more eminent fruits of Pentecost. But in passing, let us note some ofTHE OF First, these Israelites were convicted of sin.“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do” (Acts 2:37)? How marvelous! The men who had rejected Jesus now giving audience to His Apostles; the men who had repudiated the testimony of the Son of God now silenced by the testimony of an ignorant fisherman; the men who had answered the claims of the Christ with the cry, “Crucify Him”! now responding to the appeal of His Apostle by pleading, “What shall we do”? How explain it? Jesus Himself had anticipated it, and had even prophesied it. Of His own ministry as compared with that of His disciples who should continue the same, He said, “Greater works than I have done shall ye do”, but He assigned a reason, “Because I go unto the Father”. That very phrase immediately reminds us of another, “And if I go, He, the Holy Spirit, will come unto you”.

It was not Peter then that wrought that result; it was not the power of man exceeding the power of God. That is never so!

It was not the eloquence of the disciple surpassing that of his Master. As between Peter and Christ as spokesmen, there is no comparison. It is in the circumstance that the same God who, in the crucifixion of Christ, triumphed against sin and, in the resurrection of Christ, against the grave, is now through the Spirit of that ascended Lord triumphing again in the hearts of men.However, in this clear record there is marvelous comfort for the preacher. When his message falls upon dull ears; when his Gospel gets no response from unregenerate hearts; when his sacrificial ministry is met with either cold indifference or hot opposition, let him be forever reminded of the fact that here Jesus went before. He endured all and more than any minister will ever have to endure at the hands of bigoted and blinded men. I have men write me often and tell me of the discouragements of their fields, and how they want to quit them on that account and go in search for others that shall present opportunities of ease, and render possible larger and more easily accomplished success.

In such thoughts Jesus is not our example. The birds of the air had nests and the foxes of twenty centuries ago had their holes in which they made comfortable homes.

Christ had not where to lay His head. Preacher comforts were few with Him, popularity was more seldom enjoyed than opposition, apparent failure more often faced than marvelous success. It is enough for the servant that he be as his Lord. You may have to do as He did—sow without seeing the grain springing at all. You may have to pass on and leave behind you no green fields—the promise of harvest. Then why not comfort yourself as He must have done by remembering that another may water and the fruits may yet come, and both the sower and the reaper shall rejoice together?But while we intend an elaborate treatment of the next point in the chapter that shall follow, we are ill content to pass it over in perfect silence in this present discussion.See here the marvelous consecration in service.

That was the second product of this Apostle’s appeal.“And they continued stedfastly in the Apostle’s doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers.“And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles.“And all that believed were together, and had all things common,“And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart” (Acts 2:42-46).What a picture of church life! What pastor can be found on the face of the earth that would not like to have such conditions existing in his parish and such consecration mark his membership?

Thank God for a model! Oh, ye men of modern theology, of man-made plans and twentieth century schemes, how your products pale in the presence of this report! Your programs have little of kinship with this record. To study them is to wonder what Christ has to do with them, and what they have to do with Christ. Christianity is not a pageant put on once a year, however pretty that may be! Christianity is not a program to be performed on a certain day of the week and at certain hours of the day, however prominent the names that may appear upon it!

Christianity is not a word picture to be presented from the pulpit while rapt auditors listen with openmouthed admiration to the orator! Christianity is with men who have yielded themselves to Christ, are filled with the Holy Spirit, are on fire for God to such an extent that they are obedient to Him in baptism; to such an extent that they take pleasure in the study of apostolic doctrines, find their joy in Christian fellowship, see the significance of the Lord’s Supper, and assemble themselves with gladness to the place of prayer; to such an extent that signs and wonders are truly reported with the passing of the days and that contributions are no longer niggardly but involve all upon the altar; to such an extent that every service is rendered with joy and every meal is received with thanksgiving and every ounce of strength is laid willingly on the altar.If time permitted, I should like to conclude this exposition by a reference to sanctification in soul winning.

Only a word and we let that theme await our fuller discussion in another chapter.What a day that Pentecostal day was! Twenty-five hundred converted that day and added to the five hundred previously saved! The First Church of Jerusalem organized with a membership of three thousand strong, and what days followed it of “teaching” and “fellowship” and “ceremony” and “signs and wonders” and, above all, “salvation”! “The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). That phrase voices the normal condition of the Church. That phrase speaks the Divine objective of the Church. It is one with that of the Son Himself. He came to “seek and save that which was lost”. As the Father sent Him, so sends He us.

Do we see the way?

Acts 2:44-47

THE BY- OF Acts 2:44-47. ALONG with that apostasy which plainly marks our time, there is running a counter movement which calls upon the Church of God to bestir herself, inasmuch as “the time is short” and “the day of the Lord draweth nigh”. A proper interpretation of the seven Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia, found in the Apocalypse, is a profitable presentation of these facts. The same Lord who tells the Church of Laodicea, the Church that is to characterize the end of the age:“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:I would thou wert cold or hot.“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouthy“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:5-17);adds,“I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.“As many as I love I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Revelation 3:15-19).The great George Lorimer, just a while before his death, declared that the need of the hour is that the Church of God should take herself more seriously; that she should realize that the well-being of the community is inextricably interwoven with the success of that which we represent. And he justly affirms that there is a languidness and listlessness in the way of our meeting church obligations which would be fatal to any other enterprise. We are halfhearted and often explosively sensitive, agitating and rending churches through our foolish partisanship, when we ought to be united and fervently zealous. The church is not first with us, nor second, and often not even third.

Self-indulgence, amusements and frivolous engagements have the right of way. The prayer meeting has imperative claims on only a few Christians, and by some is neglected for balls and social functions, while week-end parties are welcomed as a medium of relief from the tedium of the sanctuary.

Delight in the place where God’s honor dwelleth seems to be a declining joy. Clubs and outside organizations command better service from the Christian people than the churches of which they are members. Movements for the advance of social enterprises or the increase of intelligence arouses their enthusiasm more than concerted endeavors for the promotion of religion and morals.I am here this morning, by the grace of God, to so interpret this text as to bring this beloved church to take itself more seriously. Let me pick from it three of its central and dominating facts. IN CHURCH GOINGThe spiritual desire of the regenerate soul. The members of the old Church at Jerusalem, of which the Apostles were the leaders, did not forsake the assembling of themselves together.

Our text is, “And all that believed were together”. That single phrase betokens their unity, their good fellowship, their cooperative service.

The man who is not drawn to the Christian temple is lacking in evidence of personal conversion. People often come to me with the question, “How; shall I know that I am saved?” John, in his first Epistle, third chapter and fourteenth verse, answers it: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”.A letter received yesterday from my youngest lad absent, at a University, revived afresh the feelings of the first year away from home. He said, “I must confess, I am homesick.” It is an experience not soon to be forgotten. With me it was the more intense because I was five hundred miles from home instead of fifty, and until that journey was made I had scarcely known the use of steam cars; had never put in a week under a roof with others than my own flesh and blood. Consequently, when I discovered that there was a Kentuckian in the school, I sought him out and felt like I had found an old acquaintance. I knew at least that we had been born under kindred conditions, bred under similar circumstances, and that our history was in common, and conversation was accordingly easy.

And next day, learning of another, I went for him, and so on, until every state man in the far away school was my friend.It would seem, indeed, that to be born of the Spirit of God, to be fed at the same table—the table of the Lord, and upon the same bread—that of His Word, ought to provide a basis of fellowship above that which natural birth begets. Somehow the babe, supposed to be entirely unconscious, knows the difference between the touch of mother, father, brother and sister, and any stranger that may enter the house; and I bear my testimony that often when consciousness of spiritual indifference has distressed me, and known sins have discouraged, and Satan has come with his railing accusations against both my accomplishments and my character, I have been compelled to fall back upon this Biblical evidence, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”, for with me, at least, there was a time when my own attitude toward the people of God changed and I suddenly came to love them, and ever since I have counted it the time of my conversion, and believed that it was the evidence of my regeneration.This fellowship is essential to spiritual life.

The Apostles Creed does well to declare in favor of the “goodly fellowship of the saints” Goodly” it is! Paul, writing to the Galatians (Galatians 2:9), rejoices that James and Cephas and John, reputed to be pillars in the Church there, gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. Writing to the Philippians (Philippians 1:5), he declares that he makes his supplications with joy for their fellowship in the furtherance of the Gospel. John, in his first Epistle (1 John 1:3), says,“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us”. And a bit later, in the same Epistle, he says,“If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).A further comparison of Scripture with Scripture shows the extreme emphasis put upon Christian fellowship by the first Apostles of the Christian faith. The January number of the “Expositor” contains a letter which Rev. Thomas H. Sprague, of the Grace Temple Baptist Church, Philadelphia, is accustomed to send out to the newest members of the church immediately after their reception, and in it he says, “Allow me again to express to you a hearty welcome into the church. A place in the Church of Jesus Christ is one of the highest honors that can come to us upon earth. It is filled with privilege.

We have the privilege of fellowship. That of itself means much to us.

Coming into contact with one another as we strive to follow Christ, we are bound to receive greater help, greater incentive, greater devotion. No wonder that the writer to the Hebrews exhorted them not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, because it is only as we associate one with another that we receive mutual assistance.”The men who forget this fact pay dearly for it, and the pitiable thing is that most of them are not even conscious of the losses they have sustained. I have read somewhere of a pastor who mourned over a backslider in his congregation—a man who had once been a regular attendant at both prayer meeting and all Sunday services, but now for months had never been seen in the prayer room. The pastor, at the close of a meeting, with burdened heart wended his way to the member’s home. He found him sitting before an open fire. The layman looked startled, and after having hastily brought a chair for his minister, he settled himself as if ready to hear words of rebuke.

The preacher looked calmly at the fire for a moment, then lightly lifting the tongs, he took a glowing coal from the midst of its fires and laid it by itself upon the hearthstone, and without a word watched the blaze die out of it, the fires fade, till finally nothing but ash and cinder remained. The man who had looked on intently was too keen an observer not to understand.

Walking over to his pastor, he put his hand upon his shoulder and said, “Pastor, you need not say a word, sir, not a word! not a word! I will be there next Sunday and at prayer meeting on Wednesday night.” I will tell you there is many a man whose spiritual life has gone to ashes because he has neglected to assemble with the saints of God, and has lost out on the side of goodly fellowship.This is the explanation of much dissatisfaction. It is unsatisfactory to the church and to the minister, but far more unsatisfactory to the man involved. Only a few years ago Dr. Stanton, that successful Baptist preacher, penned a letter which was widely published to dissatisfied church-members, many of whom are first-class critics of the very institution to which they belong. Dr.

Stanton said, “The Church of God does just exactly what its members do, and is exactly what they are, no more, no less. Every member in it who does nothing detracts just that much from its usefulness and its consequent influence.

The church may be as orthodox as the Bible, but unless it is as useful as the men of the Bible, it will degenerate into a club for the preservation of dead orthodoxy.” Let the man who talks about the “usefulness” of the church lend his assistance in making her so, and shortly his criticism will be turned into commendation. The day you become useful to the church, that day the church will become useful to you. The only reason the people in the church derive no benefit from it is because they are in it, but not of it.John, in that first Epistle of his, in which he talks so much of “the fellowship of the saints” and of “fellowship with the Lord”, finally comes to deal with some who have left that inner circle, and says,“They went out from us; but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19).Let us not forget that the first feature of this wonderful church life at old Jerusalem was that they were together.But a second suggestion. IN CHURCH GIVING“And had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2:44-45).Permit two or three remarks concerning Christian giving. You will not dispute some of these even though you argue against others.It ought to run parallel with God’s blessing. If “every good and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights”, then shall we be of the company of those who receive but never give, who take in, but never send out, who are like the Dead Sea, with an out-let closed.

In the parlance of the slangy times, “getting all we can and canning all we get”. My friend has a ludicrous story he tells of a close-fisted old fellow who finally fell a victim to rheumatism and for a long time had to be confined to his house.

But eventually he was sufficiently recovered to occupy a chair in the midweek prayer meeting. It happened on covenant night and the pastor said, “Now we will try to get a testimony from each member to-night. Here is Brother Jones who has come back to us after a long absence. He will stand up and tell us what the Lord has done for him.” Whereupon Brother Jones painfully dragged to his feet and said, “If I have to bear my testimony I suppose I must. All I got to say about it is that the Lord has most ruined me.” There are not a few who are ready to lay up to God’s account the devil’s work in any form of affliction or disease, but are equally ready to “forget all God’s benefits”. I have known children like that.

Parents might be kind ninety-nine hundredths of the time and be almost constantly on the giving hand, but the moment a refusal or a question arises, the very mouth that never expressed a “thank you” is filled with complaint and reproaches; and I have known church-members after the same manner. And it is a remarkable thing that the more children have and the more their parents do for them, the more likely they are to exhibit this critical spirit.

And this fact often finds a parallel in the Church of God. The ill-favored are not always the least thankful, nor are the most-favored the most grateful.I am confident that any man who parallels God’s blessing with his gifts will never see a day go over his head without “laying by in store” something for the treasury of the Lord.That something ought to be in proportion to God’s blessing. When Paul was writing to the Corinthians regarding a special collection, he introduced a righteous principle by saying, “Concerning the collection for the saints * *. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store as he may prosper”. One who will take pains to compare Scripture with Scripture will find that is the very principle of the Old Testament teaching—more from the rich, less from the poor, but from each “as God has prospered”. I have had a good many people object to my preaching on giving lest I get the poor to beggar themselves for the Church of God, but as a rule, it has not been the plain, less financially favored people who have presented that plea, and I do not believe they thank others for speaking in their behalf.

I have heard of a Methodist minister who had in one of his charges a well-to-do man that gave regularly every Sabbath day $5.00 for the support of the church. There was in the same church a widow who was supporting herself and six children by washing.

She gave just as regularly 5¢ a week, or a hundredth part of the prospered fellow church-member. This good layman saw her about it and proved his Christianity by going to the minister and saying, “That poor woman ought to pay nothing and I want the privilege of paying that 5¢ a week for her.” The pastor was pleased with such a layman and he ought to have been. He called on the widow to tell her in most considerate manner of the kindly proposition, but to his surprise her face filled with pain, tears flooded her cheeks as she asked, “Do they want to take away from me even the comfort that I have in giving to my Lord? My health is good; my children keep well; I am the recipient of daily blessings, and one of the greatest joys of my life is the little offering that goes into that envelope each week.” I thank God for one man who had religion enough to go beyond a mere criticism of appeal to the poor and propose to bear their burdens; that was proof of his sincerity. But I thank God also for a widow who still recognized that in the midst of hardship and difficult circumstance God had not forsaken her, and who refused to neglect the cause of God.This giving ought to be in keeping with God’s Word. I am not going to take time this morning to preach another sermon on tithing.

The Scriptures are not changed since last I spoke on this subject. It is still true that “the tenth is the Lord’s”; the injunction still stands, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord, if I will not open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it”.

If we are not convinced by the plain and multiplied teachings of Scripture, we will hardly be persuaded by the preacher’s repetition of the same.This Isaiah 1927. In the last five years our Treasurer has received and disbursed in School and Church $1,063,742.60. Some of you far exceed the tenth; but I suspect if all tithed, we should have given double that amount, or more than $2,000,000.00 in these same five years. At any rate, one-half our membership has given the million recorded in Treasury books. IN “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,“Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:46-47).Proclaiming the Gospel ought to be the very breath of the new-born.

Sometime since, the “St. Louis Advocate” said, “They talk pro and con about evangelists and evangelism.

Frequently, one might say habitually, they ignore the fact that every church-member is morally bound to do all the evangelistic work that lies in his power. The church-member who is not an evangelist is missing his opportunities and mistaking his calling. All need not preach; it is not necessary that all should address audiences, or even participate in public gatherings for religious purposes. The quiet evangelism which makes no parade of its purposes, plans or doings, is often wonderfully effective.” The New Testament view knows little difference between the professional evangelist and the consecrated layman. Philip started out the latter, and ere he knew it, he had blossomed into the former. Charles Spurgeon, speaking of that passage in God’s Word which describes the persecution that dispersed the disciples from Jerusalem, says, “Most people would think that Scripture ought to read, ‘Then the Apostles went everywhere preaching the Gospel.’ ” On the contrary they did not go at all. They remained at headquarters as yet. But the rest of the Church went everywhere preaching the Gospel. A general may have to stand still in the midst of the army and direct the ‘forces, or even take a position in the rear for the same purpose, but the common soldier should fill his place, keep step to the music and be ever ready for the conflict. We have the layman’s movement in a multitude of forms. God grant that it may mean a loosening of the layman’s tongue to tell, as did the redeemed Gadarene, how great things the Lord has done for him. The private ministry of the first century was the secret of spiritual power, and never so long as the churches propose to delegate to a professional body the burden of testimony will the Gospel be proclaimed according to the Divine purpose, or the Church mark a Divinely appointed progress. The man who was healed at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, went with the Apostles into the Temple, “walking and leaping and praising God”. I believe that with the new birth—new spiritual life—there is as positive a tendency to speech as is in the babe’s desire to prattle, and that the dumb child in God’s family is no more desirable than the dumb child in the domestic circle. Our testimony ought to be in the language of the Word. There is a positive religious and logical sequence in the statement, “They continued stedfastly in the Apostles teaching”, and the phrase, “The Lord added to them daily those that were being saved”. “The Apostles’ teaching” may be summed up in one word—“Christ”. Paul, the matchless preacher of them all, declared, “I am determined to know nothing among you save Christ and Him crucified”. Christ is the Gospel—“the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth”. Charles Spurgeon spoke truthfully when he said, “The faith of the Scriptures has Christ for its center, Christ for its circumference, and Christ for its substance. The Name— that is the person, the character, the work, the teachings of Christ.

This is the faith of Christians. Let the eighth chapter of Acts illustrate. “Philip down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them”.

It was when they believed Philip’s preaching the things concerning the Name of Jesus Christ, and the Kingdom of God, that they were baptized. And Philip never knew a time in his experience when he found it necessary to depart from that custom. Later, when he came to deal with the noted treasurer of Candace, he did not accommodate himself to Egyptian philosophy, nor clothe his speech in the language of learning, but he opened his mouth and began at the same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And after all that has been said (and almost every printed page is now the modicum of it) by modern thinkers, that “the demands of the modern man necessitate the accommodating of the Gosper’, “the restating old truths”, and all the rest, it still remains a fact, daily illustrated by church history, that we need no new Gospel, but rather the same great truths in the same Divine phrases. Charles Spurgeon had good occasion for saying, “My confidence in the old Gospel grows as I see the speedy failure of all the quackeries of succeeding years. The methods of the modern school are a bottle of smoke. “Christ crucified” is the only remedy for sin.

It is ours to keep to the Gospel of Life, for it is a truth that “whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ hath everlasting life”, and, “There is none other Name given under heaven and among men whereby we must be saved”.This proclamation ought to be inspired by soul interest. Jowett has a volume on “The Passion for Souls”.

We need to get that passion out of books and into lives. Almost daily I am face to face with some such a presentation of ideas as made up the burden of Dr. Faunce’s address before a Baptist Convention on “Treasure in Earthly Vessels”, and almost hourly hear the call to social service. I do not object to it, but I insist that no service is truly social, and at the same time uplifting and helpful, until it is spiritual; and I insist that no orator of socialism is worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with those spiritual pathologists whose lives were big with the passion to redeem their own. There are many men in America who can write eloquently enough on “The Coming Future of Japan”, but the work of the true missionary—the work of bringing Christ to the children, Christ to the men and women of Japan—is worth more than ten thousand such treatises, for when they have received Jesus, they then have a motive for living that the eloquent modernist has not even imagined, much less prescribed. And when Christ has come into their hearts they have a basis of education, for civilization such as cannot exist apart from that experience. There is a bit of history associated with Livingstone in Africa that will suffice for my final illustration. Dr. Meyer tells us that when Livingstone went to Africa there was a Scotch woman, Mrs. MacRobert, quite advanced in years, who had saved up thirty pounds. She came to the great missionary saying, “When you get to Africa please spare yourself needless pain and toil. Use this money; hire a body servant to care for you.” So when he reached Africa he hired a man by the name of Sebalwe to attend him.

One day a lion sprang upon Mr. Livingstone, crushing the bones of his left arm and was ready to destroy him, when this man leaped at the lion and drew attention to himself so that the lion turned from Livingstone and sprang at him; but the bullets of their companions pierced the beast’s heart and he fell dead at Sebalwe’s feet. The body servant hired by the Scotch woman had saved the great missionary and meant light to darkest Africa, and I cannot help feeling that a proper sense of responsibility upon the part of those of us who know all the luxury of American life, might save many years of our representatives in foreign lands and extend an influence that is the most effective known in bringing all nations to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, hastening that Kingdom for which we pray, as He taught us, that it should “come”.