Because I Live, You Will Live Also

It's been said of the early Christians that they were incorrigibly happy, utterly unafraid, and nearly always in trouble. And that's a pretty accurate description. But then they were people who knew what they believed, and they believed what they knew, and by and large the trouble today is that people don't believe enough of what they know to make them happy.

And they don't know enough of what they believe to make them unafraid, and they neither know nor believe enough ever to get themselves into trouble. But it's always exciting to turn to the record that God has given to us of the activities of this early band of believers. The record is given to us in what is called the Acts of the Apostles.

In a sense, that's a misnomer, as Dr. Luke, in writing the book, seeks clearly to indicate. Written by the author of Luke's gospel, he introduces this new book in the first chapter and the first verse by saying this, Acts 1 and verse 1, the former treaties have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. And the inference, of course, from that statement is that having already written you one book about what the Lord Jesus began to do and what he began to teach, I'm now writing you another book about what he continued to do.

And what he continued to teach. And the only difference between the two records, apart from its factual content, will be the body through which the Lord Jesus taught and did. The record that I've given you in the gospel is what the Lord Jesus began to do and to teach in the body that was presented to him by the father born at Bethlehem.

And this book, which records what he continued to do and to teach, is what he continued to do and to teach in the body that was presented to him by the father on the day of Pentecost. The new body, that corporate body of which he is the head and of which every individual boy, girl, man, or woman cleansed in his blood and indwelt by his spirit has become a member in particular. And that'll be the only difference.

It'll be the same person in action, the same person teaching, same person doing. Just the humanity that clothes that activity would have changed. And this we need to grasp because it's as valid now as it was then.

The only person whom the father recognizes with the right to be in action on earth to implement his eternal purposes is Jesus Christ. And to you and to me, if we've claimed him as our savior, has been given the inexpressible privilege of being that flesh and blood with which he is incarnate in the 20th century. That flesh and blood with which he clothes his divine purposes.

And of course, that's why he made us. Because God created man to be inhabited by God, for God, so that in this physical, visible body we might give a physical and a visible expression of an invisible God. So we're going to turn to this book and explore.

And to that end, if you'll turn now to the 5th chapter and the 12th verse. By the apostles, by the hands of the apostles, were many signs and the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.

And the 14th verse tells us that believers were the more added to the Lord. Multitudes, both of men and women, believers added to the Lord. Now, we recognize the significance of that in the light of the gospel.

A few remarks that I've already made. This, to the early church, constituted genuine conversion, added to the Lord. This is how they described any boy, girl, or man or woman who, in repentance toward God, put their faith in the Lord Jesus.

They got excited about it, added to the Lord. There was no institutionalized church at that time. They would have met in each other's homes.

They didn't call themselves Baptists or Methodists or Presbyterians or Plymouth Brethren. They were simply added to the Lord. If this lad accepted Christ as Redeemer, and there was a genuine evidence of a spiritual new birth, they got excited because the Lord Jesus now had another pair of hands.

He had two more feet to walk with, another mouth to talk with, two eyes to see with, and two ears to hear with, another mind to think with, and another heart to love with, added to the Lord. And this was their conception of becoming a Christian. You'll remember in the 11th chapter of the Acts, in the 19th verse, And in passing we might note that again and again you'll find that sort of couplet in the record in the Acts, end of verse 19, preaching the word, end of verse 20, preaching the Lord Jesus, because these were synonymous terms.

To preach the word was to preach Christ. Because as we shall be emphasizing, the one, the written word, simply foreshadowed the other, the living word. But both the written and the living word were gospel.

And if you preached gospel, you preached Jesus Christ. And whether you preached the scriptures, or whether you preached the person, it was one and the same thing. Because they're inextricably identified the one with the other.

And tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who when he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord, for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, full of faith. And much people was added unto the Lord. This is how they described those who received Christ as their Redeemer.

A new member had been baptized into the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and they taught much people, and the disciples, as well you remember, were called Christians first, in Antioch. There weren't even any Christians until then.

There were believers, forgiven sinners, but they weren't called anything except men of the way. Saul of Tarsus headed for Damascus to destroy all who were of this way. It was a way of life.

They were called Christians by the neighbors because it was so demonstrably obvious that they belonged to Jesus Christ. They were Christ's men, Christ's women, Christ's boys, Christ's girls. They were Christians.

It's always good to derive your name from the neighbors. They should call the names, and we've just got to make quite sure they call the right name. But you see, that will be the valid evidence of the quality of our spiritual lives, and they were called there in Antioch, for the very first time, Christians.

Not by fellow Christians, but by the casual observer, by the neighbors, by the crowd. They were called Christ's people, added to the Lord, and this adding of boys and girls and men and women to the body of Jesus Christ is what the Bible describes as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We're baptized into the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

In the first epistle to the Corinthians and the twelfth chapter, 1 Corinthians and chapter 12, and the twelfth verse, as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. The illustration he's using, of course, is the physical body. Just as we have fingers and thumbs and hands and feet and arms, but all one body, each an individual member of a corporate whole, integrated into a unified, intelligent purpose, so also is Christ.

For by one spirit, the Holy Spirit, are we all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, we've all been made to drink into one spirit. The body is not one member, but many, and in the 27th verse, ye are the body of Christ, the only body of which he can be visible on earth today, the only body through which he can be audible on earth today, the only body with which he can clothe with the flesh and blood of man's humanity, his divine activity.

You're the body of Christ, and members in particular, and we become members in particular of that body just so soon as we receive the life of Christ by the indwelling of his Holy Spirit. We can only share the life of the Lord Jesus by the presence of his Holy Spirit, for as we have seen, the Holy Spirit is that member of the Trinity through whom a man offers his humanity, body, soul, spirit to God, and the Holy Spirit is that member of the Trinity through whom God shares his deity with a man. So we're baptized into the body of Christ the moment the Holy Spirit comes to take up residence within our human spirits, and the restoration of the Holy Spirit of the human spirit is the baptism of the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

It corresponds simultaneous in time with what elsewhere is described as new birth or spiritual regeneration. Writing to Titus in the third chapter in the fifth verse, the apostle Paul says, not by any works of righteousness which we have done, according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, rebirth, the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost whom he sheds upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior. So the Savior accomplishes that redemptive transaction, reconciliation to God on the basis of his atoning death, that allows the Father, without doing violence to his own righteousness, to restore to us his Spirit through whom Christ takes up residence within our humanity, as through him once the Father took up residence in his humanity.

And as he then was the body of the Father on earth, so we now are the body of Christ on earth, as the Father sent him, so now he sends us, baptized into the body of Christ. These fingers are members of my body, not because they look like fingers, but simply because they possess my life, because they have a sensitivity to the purposes of my mind, they're receptive to my instructions, they're available and obedient, they're members of my body. I had half a finger shot away during the war by an unfriendly German tank, you know, I said don't shoot and he shot, and I might be embarrassed by the fact that half of it's missing, I'm not, but supposing I were, well I could, I'm sure I could get a an imitation finger put on, I'm sure somebody would come up with a nice piece of plastic, probably a little mechanism to make it sort of kink like, you know, the rest, and you'd probably be deceived, you wouldn't know, at closest inspection you probably wouldn't know, but would it be a member of my body? Well of course it wouldn't know, it'd be an imitation of the real thing, but just a rubber dummy, capable of deceiving everybody, but totally destitute of life, and you could tread on it all day, I wouldn't complain, but if you try on my little finger, then I'd say pardon me, but you're, you're, you're standing on me, and you might say, oh no I'm not, I'm only, I'm only treading on your little finger, and I'd say I don't mind whether you're treading on my finger or my face, get off, and if you didn't, I'd mobilize the other members of my body and give you some assistance.

Members of the body of Christ, simply because we possess his life, and the only way you and I can share the life of Jesus Christ is by the presence of his Holy Spirit, and that is why of course the Holy Spirit is the one who seals that redemptive transaction just so soon as being acquitted on the grounds of Christ's atoning death, we're reconciled to God our maker. Redemption and new birth. Indivisible, inseparable the one from the other, simultaneous in time, but never to be confused the one for the other.

We were discussing this with some of the students last evening, the other young folk, how we're lazy, we're slovenly in the use of our evangelical terminology, and it does a tremendous amount of damage, and of course it's also very revealing as to a person's real understanding of the spiritual issues that are involved. We talk about being converted, saved, redeemed, born again, converted, Jesus living in the heart, and all those expressions are tended, we tend to lump together as though they express the same transaction, but they don't. To say I am redeemed is not to say I'm born again.

To say I am born again is not to say I'm redeemed. I can't preach redemption as though I was preaching new birth, and I can't preach new birth as though I was preaching redemption. They're simultaneous in time, they're inextricably identified the one with the other in God's purpose towards me, but they're two totally distinct transactions so far as God is concerned.

You can't be redeemed without being born again, that's true. Any person who is redeemed is also born again, and nobody that was born again was ever born again without being redeemed, that's equally true. But to say that I can't be born again without being redeemed, and to say that I can't be redeemed without being born again, isn't to say that to be redeemed and to be born again are one and the same thing, they're not.

What did he demand of the Lord Jesus that you and I should be redeemed? His death. It's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, that cleanses us from all sin. It was his atoning and vicarious sacrifice that accomplished our reconciliation to God.

That was the price that was paid, his death. We're reconciled to God by the death of his son. So, redemption demands his death.

But what does regeneration, what does new birth demand? Could I be born again if Jesus Christ was still in the grave? No. Rebirth, spiritual regeneration demands his life, because new birth is the restoration of the life of Jesus Christ to the believer through the presence of his Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus in John 14 said, I will come to you, because I live, you will live also.

In other words, because I'm going to come alive, you're going to share my resurrection. Because I live, you're going to live also. And Paul, of course, in the 15th Corinthians says, if Jesus Christ is dead, if he didn't rise, we are of all men most miserable, because if he's still dead, we are.

So what does regeneration demand? If we are to share the life of Jesus Christ on earth now, what did he demand? His resurrection. Redemption demanded his death. Regeneration demands his life.

The one is dependent upon his crucifixion. The other is dependent upon his resurrection. How can they be one and the same thing? One is consequential upon the other, of course.

And the purpose of his death for us was to put his life in us. The consequence of his death for us, redemption. The consequence of his life in us, regeneration.

And it's this regeneration, this spiritual resurrection, that takes place the moment Jesus Christ comes to take up residence within us, that constitutes our new birth or baptism by the Holy Spirit into his body, so we become individual members of that body corporate that he occupies. That's why the Lord Jesus said, I am the resurrection. I am the resurrection and the life.

When he says I am the resurrection, he simply means that if you're dead, as you are, by birth, born in this world, dead in trespasses and sins, alienated from the life of God, and you want to come alive, there's only one way that you can come alive, and that is that by my presence, life, I should abolish death. See, there's only one way you can destroy death, and that's by introducing life. That's the only cure for death.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ says you're born dead, you're born the fallen seed of a fallen Adam, spiritually destitute, physically alive, soulishly active, spiritually dead. But when I come to take up residence within you, to share my life with you through the presence of my Holy Spirit, my presence constitutes resurrection. Because I am life, and the moment there's life, death and life can't be mutually going to coexist.

The presence of life abolishes death, and so the Apostle Paul tells us in the second chapter, the first chapter of his second epistle, that the Lord Jesus was manifested to Timothy, the Lord Jesus was manifested to abolish death and bring life and immortality to life. So the Lord Jesus, when he arrives, as it were, in your heart, says, I'm the resurrection. You were dead, now you're alive again, and you're only alive again by my presence.

I am the resurrection, and because I'm the resurrection, that's the crisis of your spiritual regeneration. This is the beginning of an entirely new experience for you, because I am the resurrection by my presence. But now, deriving from that resurrection presence, I'm the life.

Flowing from my presence is going to be the life that you're going to live, the Christian life, because the Christian life is Christ. That's why, of course, you can't begin to live the Christian life until resurrection is taking place. His presence constitutes resurrection, initially, and proceeds in the process of time as life, like a flowing river.

Spiritual new birth, the baptism of the Holy Ghost into the body of Christ. And the early Christians understood this very clearly, and so got very excited, and of course they only credited anybody with a genuine conversion in whom there was patent evidence of the released life of the now indwelling Lord who had come to occupy their humanity, added to the Lord. And for this reason, of course, in the 13th verse of that fifth chapter of Acts, which I deliberately omitted to read, of the rest in whom resurrection hadn't taken place, of the rest who hadn't become partakers of his indwelling life, durst no man join himself to them.

Of the rest, durst no man join himself to them. In other words, nobody was prepared in those days to stick their neck out that far. If they weren't prepared for the true implications of a spiritual new birth as the inevitable consequence of their conversion, repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus Christ, they didn't dare join themselves to them.

If they weren't prepared to recognize that their hands, from the moment of their conversion, belonged to Jesus Christ, and their lips and feet, the totality of their being, and every area of their personality, was now to be monopolized by Jesus Christ as the one who, having redeemed them by his death, now indwells them in the power of his resurrection, they didn't dare to call themselves Christians, because they knew perfectly well that, had they so dared, they would have been exposed almost immediately for the foes that they were. Nobody dared call themselves a Christian unless they were prepared to be the Christian they'd become. Of course, we've made things so cheap these days, easy-believism, that you can join a Christian club almost any time of the day or night and be accredited without any real tangible evidence that your humanity has become the temple of the living God.

But not in the early church. Nobody dared call themselves a Christian who wasn't prepared for the true implications of discipleship. And of course, this didn't go down too well with the ecclesiastical hierarchy of their day and generation, because then, as now, there was an apostate Christianity on the market.

Judaism, we must always remember, was Christianity. The Bible that the Judaists used and from which they preached was our Old Testament. The only Bible that the disciples had, as I reminded you yesterday morning, the only Bible the Lord Jesus had was the Bible that was read every Sabbath day.

It was the only Bible that was studied, it was the only revelation that was studied by the scribes and the Pharisees in their theological seminaries. It was Christianity, but it was an apostate form of Christianity, in which man's ideas of God and his Christ had been substituted for God's revelation of his purpose and plan in the person of the Lord Jesus. Every Jew believed in Christ, and Christ was preached Sabbath by Sabbath, but not God's Christ.

It was the Christ of their own theological imagination, a Christ that had been built up steadily over the years on the base of human tradition. And it was in the defense of this Christ that Saul of Tarsus persecuted the early church. It was in the defense of that Christ that he stood by consenting to the of Stephen.

It was in the defense of that Christ he was on his way to Damascus to throw into jail any who dared, dared, to proclaim that this Galilean peasant by the name of Jesus, this rabble-rouser, this street preacher, could be the Christ of God. He believed in Christ, had a sincere earnest regard for the Christ, but it was the Christ of his own imagination, fed by his theological background. So that when the Lord Jesus came, died, rose again, and now there was this company of men and women and boys and girls who had been caught up into his eternal purpose, alive, pulsating with divine energy, with all the dynamic of his indwelling deity to give them all that it takes to accomplish his purpose and plan, this was a shock to the status quo of a very respectable religious institution, where folk were settling for what the Lord Jesus described as the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

And of this righteousness, this pattern of religious procedure, the Lord Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. The church, in other words, had projected a certain pattern of procedure, and so long as you conform to that pattern of procedure, that was equated with being a valid relationship to God. And the Pharisees simply said, if you do this, that, and the other, then we'll take care of your relationship to God, we'll make quite sure you get to heaven.

But that was the respectable, valid machinery through which anybody was to be reconciled to God and to be in a right relationship to him. But there were cracks on the market. There were folk taking a shortcut.

They were claiming to get to heaven without going through the church machinery. And this was going to be bad for business. And that's why, of course, the early Christians had a rough time, not at the hands of the crowd, not at the hands of the, you know, the godless and the wicked, who were avowedly wicked.

They had a rough time at the hands of institutionalized respectable religion. And this has been true all down the history of the church, hasn't it? In every great spiritual awakening, by and large, it's resisted by an apostate Christianity. John and Charles Wesley, where did they get their problems? In their own Anglican communion.

And they were very loyal to that communion, as they should have been, and as we should be today. There's no virtue in destroying what exists. Under any circumstance.

And though I have the privilege of visiting most denominational groups and recognize just about how tattered they are, I'm still thankful for them, and rejoice that it's my privilege to minister within them and to them, because it's a mission for you. And the institutionalized denominational groups are going to be with us, just like the denominational groups, until Jesus Christ comes back again. And there's no point destroying them.

Just recognize the fallibility of them, the weaknesses exist within them, and recognize that within them all there is the true ecumenicity of the people of God. And I have delightful fellowships, as I move from one city to another, one country to another, into the different denominational areas and the different breeds and the different denominations. And find that God's people, choice people, are to be found there.

Fully cognizant, often, of the failings and weaknesses and sorrows and sadnesses that exist within their own constituency, but recognizing that God has placed them there to minister to Christ, to allow him, simply, to communicate his life through them. The only problem is that when the institutionalized church, as such, of course, won't tolerate the truth, then, of course, they usually throw a person out on his neck. And that's what happened to John and Charles Wesson.

They preached within the Church of England at the time, at the time when the Church of England was in a state of very low spiritual level. It was in great decline. It's in a far healthier condition today than it was then.

There's a very strong evangelical wing today in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in England. Some of our finest Christian men leaders today are in the Church of England. Archbishop of Baroque, I mentioned to some of you, I think, is a very fine born-again man, and he's next in line if, you know, the pulling of strings doesn't prevent it for the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He was at school with me and was one of the leaders with me of our Christian group in the school. But John and Charles Wesley, when they went into these churches, of course, were followed by a great crowd of people from the streets who were just hungry to hear the word of God. And the respectable folk who went to church just didn't like their, you know, buildings being used by these people.

And so they had to go out in the fields and into the streets and preach Christ. And that's how the Methodist Church came into being. Mind you, if John and Charles Wesley came to preach in some of the Methodist churches, they'd throw him out, too.

So what? You see, we keep on producing something new, and it'll all go the way of old flesh. And so I don't think God is calling us to establish some pure body of Christ, you know, in a little holy huddle in somebody's backyard. He said, let the wheat and the tares grow together.

Don't try to separate them, because if you do, you'll destroy the roots of the wheat. He said, I'm perfectly capable of discerning one from the other. I'm keeping a very close check, and I've got a record in heaven, and it's called the Lamb's Book of Life.

And there shall no wise enter in anything that defile it, work of abomination, but those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And that record in heaven, of course, is matched by the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, within the human spirits of every boy, girl, man, or woman on earth whose name is on that record. So it's a double check.

There's not going to be any mistake. Nobody's going to get in who ought not to get in, so don't worry. And nobody's going to get left behind who ought to be included.

God is very, very competent to take care of his affairs. But that doesn't mean that we should be sloppy in our definition of what a true Christian is. We should be careful in preserving, insofar as it's within our power, the purity of the uh, discriminative basis of trying to put people into classification.

I think the way we maintain the purity of the Church of Jesus Christ is by preaching a strong gospel. Preach the kind of gospel that made people very hesitant in the early church to identify themselves with God's people if they weren't prepared for the true implications of being Christian. That's the way you maintain the purity of the church.

The church is, was brought into being by the proclamation of the and the church all down the centuries has been perpetuated by the proclamation of the gospel. And the stronger the gospel you preach, the stronger the church that is produced. And the weaker the gospel you preach, the weaker the church you produce.

And if by weak gospel you produce a weak church, that weak church will preach a weaker gospel. So what's the best way to preserve the true spiritual vitality of it? Preach a strong gospel. And what do we mean by preaching a strong gospel? Well, preach the word of God fully, quote, the word of God fully.

Make quite sure the gospel you proclaim is the true all-embracing panoramic purpose of God. Not just to get men out of hell and into heaven, but to get God out of heaven and into man. You haven't got to worry too much about the church so long as you're absolutely certain each individual recognizes the fact that Christianity involves nothing less than Christ's immunity.

That God himself takes up residence within us and claims the right to call the shots. And to embrace the gospel is to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. You haven't got to worry too much about what condition the church will be in, if everybody truly understands that there's only one person has the right to run the show, because he happens to be head of that body, Jesus Christ.

This is our philosophy at Cape and Wren, in our Bible schools and our Bible conferences. Our great ambition is to preach ourselves out of business. To lead that boy, that girl, that man, that woman to that relationship to Jesus Christ that gives him absolute right as God to be God in their life.

Well, what can we do after that? Tell them what to do? Well, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? The moment I've introduced this young man to the place where he's prepared to say to Jesus Christ, Lord, I don't care what you do with my life, I'm expendable. No matter what ambitions I may cherish, the only criteria now is whether they conform to your purpose and plan for my life. Well, I can't go up to that fellow and say, well, now that you've given Jesus Christ a total right of way in your life to be king in his kingdom, this is what you've got to do.

A, B, C, D, and E. Who's God? I am. And we don't play that role. It's a marvelous thing to see a boy, girl, man, and woman going to orbit, spiritually, to begin to evidence those spiritual initiatives that patently have their origin in the Lord Jesus himself.

But that takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. In some cases, a person matures more quickly into an understanding of the true implications of the Christian life than others.

And until a person has grasped that principle, they need guidelines. It isn't wrong to make suggestions as to what a person should do for their spiritual well-being. I'm glad for those who taught me that I ought to read my Bible every day, and I'm glad I followed their advice.

I just wish they told me a bit more, that's all. But we need those guidelines. Just as a young child growing up has to be told, have you cleaned your teeth? Did you wash your neck? Are you sure you washed behind the ears? And so on.

But wouldn't you be a bit sad if your son came in at the age of 37, and you said, have you cleaned your teeth? Are you quite sure you washed behind the ears this morning? If I heard you talking to a middle-aged man in your family, I'd begin to feel bad. I wouldn't say anything because I wouldn't want to embarrass you, but I'd think, obviously, a retarded child. Well, wouldn't you? Yes, in other words, guidelines are perfectly legitimate, so long as a person's a baby.

But remember, so long as you constantly need guidelines for your Christian life, you're advertising the fact that you're, you know, a little retarded. How retarded are you? God wants us to grow up, you see, into a sublime spiritual independence. I don't mean egoistic, I don't mean sort of arrogantly individualistic, but such a healthy, happy, wholesome relationship to Jesus Christ that you can come to convictions of your own, and stand by them, no matter what anybody else says.

Not always having to be swept along on the tide. Well, the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, in verse 17 of Acts 5, and they were filled with indignation. And they laid their hands on the apostles, and they put them in the common prison.

This was no unusual experience for them. They were quite accustomed to this form of accommodation. It saved expense, and it made life quite exciting, because they always, you know, wondered exactly what God had in mind.

God never makes us deliberately uncomfortable. He's not mean. People always think, if I really want something, God's going to say I can't have it.

Isn't that lurking at the back of our mind? He doesn't act that way. Let us take care of our relationship to the Lord Jesus, and we shall discover that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, he gives us the desires of our heart. And that doesn't mean he gives us a blank check to have what we want.

It simply means that as you make him the delight of your heart, the desires of your heart are the desires he gives you. The desires find their wellspring in Jesus Christ. This is the ultimate secret of fulfillment, isn't it? If I so delight in the Lord Jesus that he has the right now to create within me the very desires of my heart, it's absolutely certain that the desires he creates are the desires he's going to fulfill.

He'll always be true to his own will. In other words, if I'm willing only to please him, then I can always do as I please. This is the sublime paradigm, isn't it? So long as my one primary concern is to please the Lord Jesus, I can do as I please.

Because it always pleases me to please him. Jail or grand hotel. But the angel of the Lord, by night, opened the prison doors and brought them forth.

And this is what the angel says. And it's an interesting description that he gives of the message that they're to proclaim. Gospel.

Go and stand, speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. That's how the angel described the message of the gospel. It was a word of life.

Go, stand and speak. Get to where you belong. Stay there when you get there.

And give them what you've got. Life. Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.

And, of course, the characteristic of those who, in the record of the Acts, were used under God to establish the early church, was simply that they were sent and went. And there's nothing really more complicated about the Christian life than that. To be sent and to be numbered amongst those who went.

Sent and went. You're unshackleable under those conditions. Nothing can frighten you.

If you've been sent and you went. Another way Paul puts it, don't bother to turn to this, it's in the first of his epistles to Timothy, in the first chapter. 1 Timothy 1.12, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me for that he countenally faithful, putting me in the ministry.

I love that expression. If you were to ask Paul, what's the secret of your authority? What's the secret of the blessing that follows your ministry? I think all he'd say is this, put. I was put.

You see, when you've been sent and went, you're put. And that's it. He put me.

He put me in the ministry. It was before a blaspheme and a persecution, injury, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly, even when I was consenting to the death of Stephen, breathing out threatening slaughter against the children of God and the masters, I did it ignorantly, in my own belief. God had mercy on me.

But now, having become available to Jesus Christ, I was sent and I went and put. This should undergird our confidence. Sometimes you face difficulties, problems, horizons seem to be black.

There appear to be moments of discouragement and you wonder quite how it's all going to work out. Well, just check the record. Was I sent? Did I go? Then I'm put.

Hmm. And God will take care of the consequences. Egyptians behind, Red Sea in front, certain death here, certain death there.

If I go back, they'll kill me. If I go forward, I'll drown. And if I stay where I am, they'll come.

So either way, there, here, or stay, I'm dead. That was a dilemma, wouldn't you say, for Moses? Especially when you've got a whole crowd of people shouting at you, asking you why you brought them there. But you see, Moses was unshatterable in that sense.

He wasn't 40 years before, because he wasn't sent. 40 years before, he went out to bring succor to one of his kith and kin who was being lashed by the whip of an Egyptian taskmaster that God never sent him. Because he looked this way, he looked that way, but he didn't look God's way.

So going out to be a missionary ends up by being a murderer. And within 24 hours, he was chased into oblivion for 40 years, useless to God or man. Because he went without being sent.

But not now, not now. He could look up into God's face and say, God, Egyptians behind, Red Sea in front, death all around, and death if we stay. But I'll tell you something, you told me to come here, it's your move.

Now that's it, put. And God said, OK, quick march. And the moment he marched into the Red Sea, God intervened, opened the waters, and they went through on dry land, which the Egyptians are saying to do where? Drown.

And you see, Moses discovered that the problem in front of him was designed by God to swallow up the problem behind him. And you can be absolutely certain of that whenever you're in a position where you have been put. Nothing can frighten you.

Go, stand, speak. In the temple to the people, all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, taught, but the high priest came, and they that were with him and called the council together and all the center, the children of Israel.

And they sent to the prison, they have them brought. But when the prisoners, the officers came and they found them not in the prison, they returned and told, saying, the prison truly found we shut with all safety. The keepers standing without before the doors.

But when we had opened, we found no man. And when the high priest and the captain, the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted them whereunto this would go. Then came one, told them, saying, behold, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.

Then went the captain to the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. When they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying, did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in his name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine.

You intend to bring this man's blood upon him. That was the arraignment. That was the accusation.

You have filled the city of Jerusalem with your doctrine, guilty or not guilty. And they were very happy to plead guilty. I wonder just how guilty we are today.

As somebody once put it, if you would arrest in the softness of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Guilty of filling the whole city with their doctrine. The question we need to pose at this point is this, what was the doctrine with which they filled the city of Jerusalem? And, of course, at first we would be tempted, almost instinctively, to say, well, Jesus Christ included. That Christ died for our sins.

That wasn't the message with which they filled the city of Jerusalem. That wouldn't have scared the Pharisees. That wouldn't have scared the Senate.

That wouldn't have scared the high priest and the Sanhedrin. If these people had been going around the streets and the highways and the byways and shouting from the housetop, Jesus is dead! Christ is dead! Christ is crucified! He is dead! They would have been more than pleased, because that's just what they wanted. What scared them? They didn't fill the city of Jerusalem with the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified for a very good reason.

Everybody in the city of Jerusalem knew it. They were there when it happened. And the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, the two that were on their way to Emmaus, and he said, what are you so miserable about? Why are you looking so sad? And they said, are you the only strangers in Jerusalem that haven't heard? Do you mean you don't know? And then they began to tell the risen Lord about their dead Jesus.

Now, they didn't need to tell anybody in the city of Jerusalem Jesus Christ was crucified. What was the message with which they filled the city? This Jesus whom you crucify, God raised from the dead, he's alive! That's what scared them. Wouldn't you be scared if you killed somebody and he was around town? Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him.

The one whom you crucified, God raised from the dead, he's alive, and we ought not only that, we share his resurrection. Because he lives, we live, and we're not frightened of you. You can't frighten us because you can't kill us.

He was stoned us to death. You could crucify us. You can behead us, but you can't destroy us because you couldn't destroy him.

He's alive. That's what scared them. The message of the early church was the resurrection.

The resurrection. Not the death of Jesus. The resurrection.

Of course, there never could have been a resurrection but for his dying. They preached atonement. They preached the shed blood of Christ that reconciles guilty sinners to a holy God, but that wasn't their message.

The message into which they had entered in all the fullness and the good and the plenitude of it was this, because he lives, we live also. The Christ of God, whom the father raised from the dead, has come to inhabit our humanity, and we live day by day in the plenitude of his presence. And this was to be the criterion now of all those who would stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

And just in conclusion for this morning, if you turn back to the first chapter of the book of the Acts, we'll see this emphasized, though we shall need to return to it, because we shall discover that this was the stamp and hallmark of the message proclaimed by the early church. Jesus is alive. After that short-term six weeks Bible school the Lord Jesus conducted before his ascension, they were capable of accurate exegesis.

The Bible had begun to make sense. Men and brethren, said Peter, verse 16, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which holy ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas which was guide to them that took Jesus. He was numbered with us and had been part of this ministry.

Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers of Jerusalem in so much as that field is called in their proper tongue Akaldema, that is to say the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein and his bishopric, his office, his apostleship, let another take.

And perfectly accurately Peter now makes this exegesis. Judas has to be replaced. Now bearing in mind as we shall discover later that this is the first chapter of the Acts not the second and excusing them therefore for the blunder which they made in the execution of that exegesis.

At least they got the criterion right. Wherefore said Peter, verse 21, of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up promised must one be ordained to be a witness with us of what? His resurrection. He said the one thing that matters if a man is to take the place of Judas Iscariot in the office of an apostle he's got to stand shoulder to shoulder with us and testify to the fact that this Jesus whom they crucified God raised from the dead.

He's alive. That's the criterion. Resurrection.

Because you see it was the rediscovery of Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection that completely transformed and revolutionized the life of the early disciples. This is what let them loose and set God free in terms of their humanity to accomplish his own timeless end. They rediscovered Jesus Christ in the power of his resurrection.

We'll conclude there this morning and continue in our explorations tomorrow. Let's bow our heads in prayer.